But the big question, will it be enough to overcome Google’s utter dominance of the search market?

One translation for “bing” is apparently “disease.” Some more digging on the web indicates this as well. – from TC

Last month, Yahoo’s on-again-off-again talks with Microsoft over a search and advertising partnership were said to be back on. After months of finger pointing and recriminations over who was to blame for the deal cratering, the two sides were again on speaking terms. The stripped-down deal that the two have been discussing involves Yahoo outsourcing its search engine to Microsoft. The two companies would also collaborate on advertising. But now we’re told that the same “social issues” that bedeviled Microsoft’s ham-handed pursuit of Yahoo from the start have resurfaced. The Yahoos are steamed that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer keeps returning to areas they thought the two camps had already agreed on. Maybe it’s time for Mr. Ballmer to pick up his search engine and go home. – from WSJ

The long expected upgrade to the Live Search product from Microsoft (MSFT) is being tested for a public rollout later this year. The blogosphere was a-twitter, literally, after a Twitter post by Powerset co-founder Barney Pell this past weekend, about a rebranding and updating of the search offering. (Microsoft acquired Powerset last year and Pell works on search strategy.) – from All Things D

Ending one of the worst kept secrets in Redmond, Microsoft is apparently going to publicly present its new “Kumo” branded Web search engine at the Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference in Carlsbad, Calif., next week. – from Seattle

Personally, I doubt Kumo will be the new name. After being used in testing, any “thunder” with that name is kind of gone. Plus, I’ve seen plenty of people on the web ridicule that name as a new brand choice. Sift seems potentially tied to a Microsoft mobile platform, plus Sift.com is actually owned by someone else. Hook.com also is owned by someone else. Bing.com resolves to a blank page, is registered to Microsoft and uses Microsoft’s name servers. So that’s what I’d guess it’s going to be. -from Danny Sullivan

Following on from the recent and sad news that Duke Nukem creators 3D realms have closed, it has been speculated that Microsoft are planning to buy out the company and release further titles exclusively on Xbox 360. The BitBag have brought up a few interesting facts for gamers to ponder about. The first is about Microsoft and how they gained rights to publish Duke Nukem 3D exclusively on Xbox Live. It wasn’t a straight port either as they offered new content while adding online deathmatch support. Then they state that on May 6th, the 3D Realms website went down, only to come straight back up a day later. This has led to speculation that Microsoft have purchased 3D Realms and that they might have something big to announce at E3 next month. – from here

It’s been a sad couple of days for Duke Nukem developer 3D Realms. Last week, it was rumored and then confirmed that the long-standing PC shooter developer had been shut down, throwing the likelihood of gamers ever seeing Duke Nukem Forever materialize into something playable down the toilet. A few days after the proverbial end of the company, 3D Realms’ Bryan Brewer apparently posted some new leaked footage of Duke Nukem Forever to YouTube. – from Gamespy

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a company-wide email Tuesday morning announcing a new wave of layoffs that will bring the number of job cuts at the software company to close to 5,000 this year. That’s at the high end of the job cuts that Microsoft in late January said it would make by June of next year. But Microsoft doesn’t want staffers creating a big commotion about the layoffs on email. In another less widely circulated message to managers, Microsoft senior vice president of human resources Lisa Brummel said Microsoft has “asked leaders across the company to minimize the amount of e-mail sent today, as employees told us the e-mail volume in January was distracting.” For the latest round of layoffs, Brummel wrote that Microsoft “leaders have agreed to streamline their e-mail communications.”

A copy of the memo was posted in the comments section of Mini-Microsoft, a blog run by an anonymous Microsoft employee that’s popular with company staffers. – from WSJ

Strangely, Ms. Brummel have asked folks to avoid emailing each other today because the last layoff’s email volume was so distracting. Gee, sorry to be a bother while people are trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Let’s see… how to avoid that… I know, tell people what the hell is going on and which people / groups are affected. Oy. – from Blogger

Meanwhile, Bill Gates v. Warren Buffett on Google (Via Techcrunch)

Anybody who said Apple wasn’t serious about gaming can swallow their pundit nuggets right now: They just hired Richard Teversham, Xbox Europe’s (now former) senior director of business, insights and strategy. It’s especially interesting when you take into consideration Apple’s other recent major hire, ATI’s former graphics CTO, the guy who designed the GameCube’s graphics card. For the love of all that is holy and Jobsian, however, it doesn’t mean they’re going to make a MacBoxStationCube 1080—the iPhone (and maybe that tablet/pad thing) is Apple’s gaming platform. 15 of the top 20 paid apps of all time are games. There are over 9,000 games in the App Store. And there are 37 million iPod touches and iPhone out there—still below the PSP’s 50 million and the DS’s 100 million, but consider these are consoles that have been out at least twice as long as the iPhone platform. – From Gizmodo

Microsoft is launching a new product into private beta on Tuesday morning with the aim of keeping friends and family in touch during emergencies. The idea for product, called Microsoft Vine, came to Microsoft GM Public Safety Initiatives Tammy Savage four and half years ago during Hurricane Katrina. Development started a year and a half ago. Vine is designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communication methods are either broken or not particularly efficient. Times of crisis usually involve a breakdown in mobile phone or other key communication infrastructures, and Vine is designed to be as hardy as possible to keep people connected. Vine can be accessed via a desktop client (Windows only for now), text message or email. – from TechCrunch

- from WSJ

Halfway through a speech he once gave in Seattle, Bill Gates Sr. told the audience that he never imagined he’d be employed by “the argumentative young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name.” That boy, of course, quit Harvard, started Microsoft and became the Bill Gates we know. Largely left out of the story has been the role that that the elder Gates played. The way he framed it, Mr. Gates Sr. was the chance guardian of a kid who turned out to be remarkable — and who he now works for as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. – from WSJ

William Henry Gates, Sr. (born William Henry Gates II on November 30, 1925) is a retired American attorney and philanthropist. He is the father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. – from Wikipedia

Microsoft is trying to make it easier to sway users of Windows XP onto the latest version of its operating system. For some time now, the company has been quietly building a “Windows XP mode” that uses virtualization to allow Windows 7 to easily run applications designed for Windows XP. According to sources familiar with the product, the application compatibility mode is built on the Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired in 2003, when it scooped up the assets of Connectix. By adding the compatibility mode, Microsoft is aiming to address one of the key shortcomings of Windows Vista: its compatibility issues with software designed for Windows XP and earlier versions of the operating system. Details of the Windows XP mode, previously known as Virtual Windows XP, were first published earlier Friday by the Windows SuperSite blog. – From CNET

Ah, everyone has had the experience – a new PC and buttloads of worthless software included. Discs and discs of CDs – most of them crap. But included in that ream of junk was Microsoft’s Encarta – an encyclopedia right on my own computer. The idea was kind of cool. At least it felt kind of cool. But like all CDs, it suffered from the same thing newspapers suffer from nowadays – an inability to stay up with the times.

20 years ago the concept was fine – we got our news and information from printed material. A set of encyclopedias was a big purchase for a family. They would be used for years to come by kids doing research for school projects. A CD of such material only seemed to be a logical extension – compact and up-to-date (at least for that year).

But like so many newspapers, Encarta failed to realize that the Internet was revolutionizing how people digested news and information. No site understood it better than Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia where updates are only a moment away. People discovered very quickly that they could find information on subjects from a variety of sources instantly. You were no longer stuck with Britannica’s or Encarta’s version of the world. And you certainly weren’t stuck with information that was out of date by months – or – gasp – even years.

And so millions of Microsoft Encarta software discs are but memories – just like Encarta itself.

Hidden in this Wall Street Journal article with Steve Ballmer, it looks like the Zune is official dead. If Microsoft is planning on keeping the Zune alive, Steve wouldn’t even hint at this…

SA: Whither Zune?

- from WSJ