Bud-A-Bing - Befriend Microsoft's New Search Platform

Bing Type Logo - Bing, A better way to search ... A Decision Engine! [D7 Video Link] Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)

Bud-A-Bing - Befriend Microsoft's New Search Platform

This week, Microsoft unvield its new -- beefed up and bundled with other stand-alone internet function programs -- search engine approach that they hope will command attention and grab a share of almost everyone's favorite activity on the computer, finding information!

While Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz continue to court each other in ongoing discussions about a search and advertising partnership, Microsoft has been improving their search program approach, once known as Windows Live Search and, prior to that as MSN Search, marketed under the name Microsoft Live Search.

In an executive conference dubbed WEB 3.0 (because the conference promoters think something major is happening at the intersection of tech and media, and think it deserves its own new hyped-up name: Web 3.0), the seventh edition of D: All Things Digital - D7, Microsoft unveiled its long-awaited search engine (formerly known as Kumo) - Bing.

Microsoft believes that breaking down search into easier to understand categories, they will be able to move one from a "Search Engine" to a "Decision Engine" because as they say in their promotional video - "The world doesn't need just another search engine, it needs a decision engine."

Microsoft is hoping, now that they have re-made Live Search and combined it with other strong Microsoft web interface programs, that the world will decide make Bing it's search buddy ... so Bud-A-Bing!

D7 Video: Microsoft's Ballmer and Walt Mossberg - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks with Walt Mossberg about the company's new search engine, "Bing", and other topics at the D7 conference.

This excerpted and edited from The Channel Wire -

5 Ways Microsoft's Bing Can Be A Contender
By Chad Berndtson, The Channel Wire - May 29, 2009

Bing's the thing -- and it's finally here.

Microsoft Thursday unveiled its long-awaited search engine at the D: All Things Digital Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touting Bing as a platform for smarter, deeper search beyond what its biggest rivals, including Google, have to offer.
----
In addition [to the re-branding of Live Search], a number of its platforms, such as its Virtual Earth mapping, will be rebranded as Bing functions, in that case Big Maps for Enterprise. Microsoft is going to need a lot more than a rebranding effort, however, to gain back some of Google's massive search market share -- 64.2 percent in the U.S. Vs. Microsoft's paltry 8.2 percent, according to April numbers released by ComScore.

Here are five elements of the forthcoming Bing that will give it the oomph it needs to compete:

1. Visual Presentation

Microsoft's July 2008 acquisition of Powerset, a developer of semantic search technology, gives it tools for a richer, more visually agreeable search presentation than the usual digest of blue links from Google or Yahoo.

2. Keywords Help

As search words are being typed into Bing, the Bing search function offers keywords to help users narrow their searches. If Microsoft can improve these keywords so they go beyond what Google offers with its Google Suggest, it can start to sound more realistic when it claims its a "smarter search."

3. Shop-'Til-You-Droppers and Hypochondriacs

The Bing platform breaks down into four broad categories: shopping, local, travel and health. If a user enters a search query under those categories, Bing brings back results relevant to them. For example, searching in the "shopping" category would bring back search results that include pricing and availability, and a search in the health category would find symptoms or medical research. For those who spend all their time clicking "Buy it" or freaking out about a tickle in their throat on WebMD, Microsoft might get them to where they want to go faster than Google.

4. Best Match, Instant Answers and Quick Preview

Microsoft is including a few sleek features that lend more immediacy to search, including Best Match, in which Bing collects relevant results and puts what it deems to be the most relevant search link right at the top. Similar to Google's "I Feel Lucky" search function, but if you didn't know what "I Feel Lucky" does before, you're not clicking it with the intent to use it properly. Instant Answers also takes up the "I Feel Lucky" mantle with a bit more clarity, offering single-click access to information listed in search results. Finally, Quick Preview allows a user to hover over a search result and see a text excerpt from the page of that result -- a look at the search result without actually having to click through it.

5. It's Microsoft

"Microsoft's secret sauce is its marketing savvy and its persistence," wrote Everything Channel Editor/News Steve Burke in a Wednesday blog post on ChannelWeb. "Remember, there were a few people who believed Netscape was invincible until Microsoft focused all its guns on blowing the onetime browser pioneer out of the water."
Reference Here>>

Bing will be available to the general public in less than one week, starting June 3.

Software Option Doors Thrown Open By Cellphone Hardware Giant

Smartphones as represented by the Nokia "N" series pictured here, are getting a software structural boost with the formation of an "open-source" foundation based on the Symbian OS software platform. Image Credit: Nokia via BusinessWeek

Software Option Doors Thrown Open By Cellphone Hardware Giant

In a move that will become the sea change for an industry that had been largely controlled here in North America by consumer level distributors, the world’s largest cellphone handset manufacturer buys the software operating system and plans to make the code available to developers.

By releasing the operating system to other developers, any manufacturer of a cellphone handset could adopt the software for use on its hardware platform and thereby “spread the wealth” of the development of programs that people use to get more function out of there daily mobility devices.

This move is 180 degrees from the way the recent development and release of Apple’s popular iPhone. All hardware and software comes from and can only be approved for use in the iPhone by Apple and its willing marketing partner, AT&T.

With Nokia’s ownership of the Symbian operating system software, and the decision to release the ability to use this operating system on any other manufacturers’ hardware, will naturally lead to the development of programs that can be used on many types of phones anyone purchases.

This ability for the software to work on many manufacturers’ phones will increase the competition for the more popular software applications that will get things done better, faster, and at a lower cost. An explosion of development will ensue to meet the demand for an application starved marketplace based upon the improved intelligence of the new generation of handsets.

Apple, however, will remain Apple.

Vodafone to offer 10 3G handsets including two megapixel camera phone. The headsets to be offered are: Sharp 802, Sharp 902, Motorola E1000, Motorola C980, Motorola V980, EC's Vodafone 802N, Sony Ericsson V800, Nokia 6630, Samsung Z110V and Samsung Z107V. Image Credit: wirelessmoment.com

This excerpted and edited from BusinessWeek -

Nokia Throws Open Mobile Software
Buying Symbian and making its mobile operating-system software open source should keep the likes of Apple and Microsoft on their toes
by Jennifer L. Schenker (With Mark Scott in London) – BusinessWeek,Technology (Paris) - June 24, 2008, 2:16PM EST

Few companies have the heft to take on Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Microsoft (MSFT)—much less all three at the same time. But Nokia (NOK), the world's largest handset maker, made it clear on June 24 that it does not intend to cede its ground in mobile-phone software to gate-crashing U.S. tech giants.

The Finnish company announced a plan to buy the 52.1% of shares it doesn't already own in London-based Symbian, the leading maker of operating system software for advanced mobile phones. In an industry-shifting move, Nokia will merge the company with parts of its own organization and then create an open-source foundation that will give away the resulting software for free to other handset makers.

Until now, Symbian has been owned by a consortium of rivals including Nokia, Sony (SNE), Ericsson (ERIC), Panasonic (MC), Siemens (SI), and Samsung. The company was set up a decade ago to develop an independent software platform for smartphones. And indeed, Symbian software is now used in more than half of all such devices, relegating rivals such as Microsoft's pint-size Windows Mobile to a thin slice of the market.

But in the past year, the complexion of the industry has shifted as a new crop of rivals, most using open-source Linux software, have barged in. Nokia and the newcomers are now locked in a high-stakes battle whose outcome could shape the future of mobile communication—and by extension, of the Internet, as a growing number of consumers around the world access the Web from handheld devices (BusinessWeek.com, 2/12/08).
----
But there's more to it than that. In an era of emerging wireless applications, a platform is merely the jumping-off point. The real focus in the industry is shifting from what's inside the phone to the snazzy online stuff a handset can access over the air—from mobile music and photo sharing to GPS and location-based services.
----
Before Nokia can convert millions of customers to wireless Web services, though, it has to give many more phones the capability found in its high-end N-Series models or the trendsetting Apple iPhone. That's where Symbian comes in: Today it's used mostly for top-of-the-line devices, but Nokia and others want to see it move down into mass-market products (known in industry jargon as "feature phones").

Today, such phones tend to use inflexible, homegrown software that's nightmarishly hard for handset makers and mobile operators to modify, limiting the opportunity for economies of scale possible if phones from many makers shared common software. Closed systems also make life more difficult for operators and suppliers of mobile software and services.
----
Can the new Symbian Foundation really be open and independent when Nokia has such a vested interest in its software? That's one reason so many big players in the mobile and tech industries continue to spread their bets.
----
In the end, it's unlikely any one operating system will prevail in handsets, as happened with Windows on personal computers. And for all its efforts to remain in the lead, Symbian could stumble if the rival initiatives do a better job of recruiting handset makers, independent software developers, service providers—and end users.

"This is a difficult industry," says Colly Myers, a former CEO of Symbian. "Part of it is technology; part of it is fashion; and part of it is consumer." As with anything tied to trends, he notes, "today's hero is tomorrow's fallen idol."
Reference Here>>

The big question here is will Symbian software development begin to tackle business development and mobility applications just as PALM attempted to do in its relationship with Motorola (Symbol Technologies) and JANAM ... or will this application segment become a backwater development eddy as it had for both of these business efforts ... who are left with a graduating path to the more capable linux OS for the future?

At the very least, consumers will win through a broader access to applications for use on a greater choice of devices that will provide full computer functionality, aided with access to the internet via WiFi or cell tower on an anytime, anywhere basis.

Welcome to the new emerging and open world of personal computer/phone mobility!

Blogworld & New Media Expo -- “Woodstock For Geeks”

"Turn out the lights ... the party's over" - BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2007 show banner at night after the show. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (Symblogogy)

Blogworld & New Media Expo -- “Woodstock For Geeks”

Attending a tradeshow usually becomes an exercise in real work. One attends conference modules headed up by well oiled presentations that are tightly scripted and thinly veiled attempts at a one hour advertisement of the product or service the presenter is tied to. Exhibits on the showfloor, generally, are laid out with the fortune 500 companies and/or industry leaders of the exposition's primary focus at the front of the hall, followed by dozens of “me too” offerings scattered throughout the hall. One has to turn over a lot of rocks in order to find a gem to write about or to find a new, unique approach that amazes.

Blogworld & New Media Expo was a tradeshow of a surprising and different stripe. First, this debut of a conference and exposition presented strong, established, and well defined names that operate successful media and world wide web communications platforms. Blogword then included newer technology players into the mix, and attracted an audience of over 1,500 focused and information-starved (this does not mean uninformed) weblog participants looking to become better at the craft they forge. The wealth of discovery and collaboration of this unique event was impressive.

Educational and reference resources were in abundance at the BlogWorld Bookstore. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (Symblogogy)

In the conferences, the offering of expert-presented topics was almost too much too absorb. Topics were broken down into focus tracks which helped but many of the topics overlapped, so it was impossible to get to all of the information available – kind of like one large supermarket of information. One small suggestion for future consideration --- have longer trade show visitation periods planned into the conference schedule and possibly offer the most heavily-attended sessions at more than one timeslot to allow access to more exhibitors and session topics.

Andy Beal presenting on "Integrating New Media into your Marketing Mix". Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (Symblogogy)

Track titles included Beginners, Advanced, Podcasting & New Media, Entrepreneur, Monetization, Executive, Sports Blogging, Milblogging, Political, and Special Interest Sessions. Each track offered four sessions on different topics per day and, to be honest, this was a little overwhelming. For example, if one were a writer on politics and wanted to learn how to subsidize his effort, he would have trouble choosing between sessions held at the same time titled “Smart Ways To Monetize Your Blog” and “The Power Of The Political Blogosphere.” Needless to say, many choices and so little time. Perhaps that's what made it such a great event.

Hugh Hewitt broadcasting his radio talkshow live from the tradeshow floor. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (Symblogogy)

On the exhibit floor, many new and innovative software, advertising, and web community companies populated the hall, all with a great story to tell. Due to the rapid interest and growth of the social media side of the internet (Technorati currently tracks 110 million weblogs), some company efforts were showing for the first time.

TALKSHOE tradeshow booth demonstration. Anyone can easily create, join, or listen to live interaction audioblogs, podcasts, discussions, and conversations (called Talkcasts). Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (Symblogogy)

Yahoo, AOL, Pajamas Media, The Truth Laid Bear, Technorati, Microsoft, Townhall.com, Blogger & Podcaster Magazine, SharedBook, ibnma – International Blogging & New Media Association, lingospot, podango, sphere, DOC’S Sports Service, Blog Talk Radio, PRWeb, and GodBlogCon were just a few of the exhibitors with strong solutions wanting to grow with this whole communications concept that has come to be known as BLOGGING.

With all the time spent absorbing information and solutions at the show one would think there would be little time to connect and network on a more human level – WRONG! On opening night, a pajama party sponsored by several industry leaders (Pajamas Media, Zune, Technorati come to mind) billed as the “World’s Largest Pajama Party” was held at “The Joint” inside the Hard Rock Hotel. Several people took the pajama challenge seriously and the crowd attitude was running high from physical community discovery. Both DJ-performed and Live Music played throughout the evening with an interruption for the 2007 Weblog Awards. Food, Fun, and Conversation were in plentiful supply as the night wound on with few people feeling pressed to end this time spent with like-minded people too early.

Weblog 2007 Video Category winner, Mary Katharine Ham. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (Symblogogy)

Yes, this first ever Blogworld & New Media Expo was a surprising success and it all goes off again next year in September 2008 right here in LA’s favorite suburb … Las Vegas.

Come one and come all to the second edition of a "Woodstock for Geeks” … all the like-minded people, music, no mud!

Congratulations to all the 2007 Weblog Awardees!

















blogworld expo

The Trouble With Palm OS

Treo 755p Palm OS Smartphone - Image Credit: Brighthand (A.Wright)

The Trouble With Palm OS

The trouble isn’t that the operating system doesn’t work, or is reliable, or even that it isn’t even owned by the company that had originally developed it. The trouble with the Palm OS is that everyone knows that it is time to move on to an operating system that will take advantage of all that this new mobility world has to promise.

Phone, Camera/Imager, WiFi, Bluetooth, Digital Video, Physical World Connection & Hyperlink Applications, and More are functions better left to the next generation of operating system that ACCESS is busy developing with Linux. Microsoft has led the agenda in the mobility arena and it is now time for the Palm OS to become the Windows 95 of its world.

Excerpts from Computerworld Mobile & Wireless -

Treo 755p: The Palm OS goes out with a whimper, not a bang
The end of the Palm OS?
By James Turner – Freelance Writer For Computerworld - May 17, 2007

The Palm Pilot was the first wildly successful product that enabled us to walk around with a small computer in our pockets. Palm -- and the Palm OS -- has long since branched out into smart phones, and many reports claim the new Treo 755p, just released by Sprint Nextel Corp., will be the last hurrah for the aging Palm OS as Palm replaces it with Linux.

There are many advantages to Palm in making this move. Perhaps the biggest is the fact that Palm can leverage that technology for the Treo and make available to users the many third-party applications written for Linux-based phones.

So the Treo 755p may well be the end of an era for a platform that once held near-monopolistic market share for mobile devices. Is the 755p a grand final moment for Palm OS?

Side-By-Side Older Treo 680, Treo 755p, and Nokia N95 - Image Credit: Brighthand (A.Wright)

Not really. We just spent some time with the 755p and found some solid incremental improvements, but the device is mostly familiar, with nothing that will make you sit back and say "wow." The most noticeable change is the same "antenna-ectomy" that other recent Treo releases received. The resulting form factor fits a bit better in a pocket, but the Treo antenna was never that big to begin with. Palm touts the 755p as being slimmer, but if you measure the device, it's only 1.2mm thinner.

From a corporate perspective, the Treo 755p supports the new Microsoft Exchange "Direct Push" technology. Assuming that your IT department sets up your Exchange server to support it, this allows you to receive e-mail as soon as it arrives rather than having to wait until the device polls for it.
----
Beyond that, though, the Treo 755p is very similar to the older Treos. For example, like the Treo 750, the 755p is now covered by one of those annoying, flimsy plastic snap-on covers that could easily come off the first time it catches on something. The memory capacity is the same as the 700p -- 128MB with 60MB available to the user -- as is the 312-MHz XScale processor. Both devices run the same release of Palm OS and have the same display and camera.

Oddly, the Treo 755p is rather pricey for a device sporting an aging operating system. Sprint is offering it for as low as $280, depending on the service plan, which is significantly more expensive than more up-to-date smart phones. Sprint offers both the Motorola Q and at least one BlackBerry for less than $100, depending on your plan, and a host of other smart phones for under $200.

So, if this is, indeed, the last significant product based on the Palm OS, it goes out with a whimper, not a bang. Palm hasn't released much that has been new or interesting since the Treo 700w, its first Windows Mobile phone, which started shipping more than a year ago. Of course, that will change dramatically when it releases its first Linux devices, which could see the light of day before the end of the year, according to some reports.
Read All>>

Sounds like the Linux OS can not arrive soon enough.

Rumor has it that Motorola may scoop up Palm and kill two birds with one stone … own and eliminate a major cellphone competitor and have access to ACCESS support of the Palm OS through Palm’s perpetual license agreement in order to prop up the Symbol Technologies products that were sold with the Palm OS. If the rumor becomes true, this would be a significant play.

If this were to happen, Motorola would become very strong in its core business and it would hurt the fortunes of any company that had been put together in order to capitalize on the vacuum created through the recent non-renewal of the Palm OS license to Symbol Technologies before Motorola had purchased the company.

Auto ID > Symbology > Biometrics > Photo Pattern Recognition

Photo Pattern Recognition Hyperlink - Image Credit : Microsoft Corporation

Auto ID > Symbology > Biometrics > Photo Pattern Recognition

What is Photo Pattern Recognition (PPR)?

PPR is the ability to render a still photograph into an algorithm discernable identification symbol that then can be used for all of the cellphone applications that are being popularized in Japan and Korea to connect people, places, and things.

This method of taking a photo to create a unique symbology/identifier was first theorized in a paper introduced at an IEEE conference in 1996. The paper proposed that this “photo signature” approach would be best applied to the field of security identification and secure/restricted entry applications – but what do engineers know?

Microsoft Research has other ideas for this “photo signature” and is in an alpha test during development. This developmental program is called Lincoln and anyone can apply to be a part of the test.

In order to participate, one needs to register and then pick a photo to use as a test to be used in a database that can be accessed by all who are in the test. Microsoft, for its part, has scanned in over 850 DVD covers so that anyone in the test would be able to take their cellphone or a Pocket PC with a camera (programmed with the Windows Mobile 5.0 OS) and with a WiFi hookup or cellphone could run a demonstration.

With the programming downloaded into the device one could snap a shot of the DVD cover, and be taken to a web location that describes the content of the DVD (movie reviews, runtime, genre, and etc.).

The test is not perfect and will not run on all Windows Mobile 5.0 devices at this time.

Excerpts from the Microsoft Research Lincoln web portal -

Image Credit: Microsoft Corporation

What Can I Use Lincoln For?

With Lincoln you could...

- Link your band's concert poster to an MP3 download
- Link a postcard to your holiday photos on flickr.com
- Link restaurant signage to an online menu
- Link a CD cover to your own review
- Link your yearbook photo to your blog

Lincoln was designed to recognize photos of printed materials. The material should contain large text, pictures or graphics.

Lincoln will not work well on photos of 3D objects such as faces, although it would work on a photo of a photo of a face (like the yearbook example above).
----
Try Lincoln at Your Local Video Store Today!

To illustrate Lincoln's usefulness we've added images of over 850 DVD covers and linked them to movie reviews on Amazon.com.

That's about all the titles you're likely to find "on the wall" at the video rental store.

So feel free to take your Smartphone (and Lincoln) with you the next time you're in the mood for a movie and let the Amazon reviewers help you decide what to watch!
----
How Do I Search Using Photos on Lincoln?

There are two ways to search using photos:

1) Use the Lincoln mobile client (available for download) on your Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone or Pocket PC device.

This client allows you to capture a photo and instantly search Lincoln for related content.

2) Download your photos to your computer from your phone or digital camera and use the Search feature of this web site.

Just select one of your downloaded photos and Lincoln will automatically search for related content.
----
How Do I Add an Image to Lincoln?

To become an Author on Lincoln you first create an account for yourself (see opposite on this page) by simply choosing an author name and a password.

Once logged on you'll be automatically sent to the "Add Image" page. Then just select an image on your computer, provide some relevant information such as web links or comments, and you're done!

You can manage the images you have authored on the "My Images" page.
----
Why Should I Add an Image to Lincoln?

When you add an image to Lincoln you automatically own the "top" link for that image.

Your link (and comment) cannot be voted to a lower ranking, so other users will always see your link first.
On traditional search engines you need to pay to secure the top slot, but on Lincoln we're giving it to you for FREE !
Reference Here>>

Excerpts of a review from Technology Review - Physical World Hyperlink through photo pattern recognition or "photo signature". Image Credit: Technology Review

Mobile Web Searches Using Pictures
A new Microsoft application lets people search the Internet on their cell phones using a camera instead of a keypad.
By Kate Greene - Technology Review - Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Searching for information on your cell phone by typing keywords can be cumbersome. But now researchers at Microsoft have developed a software prototype called Lincoln that they hope will make Web searches easier. According to Larry Zitnick, a Microsoft researcher who works on the project, phones equipped with the software could, for example, access online movie reviews by snapping pictures of movie posters or DVD covers and get product information from pictures of advertisements in magazines or on buses.

"The main thing we want to do is connect real-world objects with the Web using pictures," says Zitnick. "[Lincoln] is a way of finding information on the Web using images instead of keywords."

The software works by matching pictures taken on phones with pretagged pictures in a database. It provides the best results when the pictures are of two-dimensional objects, such as magazine ads or DVD covers, Zitnick says. (See the accompanying chart to find out how compatible certain pictures are with Lincoln.) Currently, the database contains pictures of DVD covers that link to movie reviews uploaded by Microsoft researchers. However, anyone can contribute his or her pictures and links to the database, and Zitnick hopes that people will fill it with pictures and links to anything from information about graffiti art to scavenger-hunt clues. Right now, Lincoln can only be downloaded for free using Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and it can only run on smart phones equipped with Windows Mobile 5.0 and PocketPCs.

Lincoln is part of a trend to link the physical world with information on the Web, often with the help of cell-phone cameras. Nokia researchers are developing software and hardware that automatically hyperlinks buildings, storefronts, and certain people via a cell-phone camera. (See "Hyperlinking Reality via Phones.") And a handful of companies, including Mobot, based in Lexington, MA, are exploring the marketing capabilities of such technology by connecting pictures of real-world advertisements and company logos to the Web.

According to Zitnick, there are two elements that distinguish his technology from others. First is the fact that anyone can contribute images, links, and comments to the database. The second element is the type of image-recognition system that Microsoft researchers have developed, which Zitnick believes will be able to search through millions of images quickly.

At the heart of the image-recognition engine is an algorithm that analyzes a picture and creates a signature that describes the picture succinctly, using a small amount of data. This signature consists of information that describes the relative position of the pixels and the intensity of a certain feature in a picture, such as the Mona Lisa's smile. In order to make this information easily searchable, data triplets are created from groups of three features. For instance, a triplet might contain information about a close-up of the Mona Lisa's smile, cheek, and nose.

When a picture is taken, the algorithm quickly establishes these data sets and compares them with established sets for the pictures already in the database.
Read All>>

Symblogogy tried to have a Windows Mobile 5.0 developmental Enterprize Mobility unit from Korea get on board with Lincoln for demonstration purposes and was not successful.

As Microsoft developer Richard Hughes communicated to Symblogogy - "A few other users have reported a similar issue on the HTC Universal PPC (see http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=252971).

Our best guess at this time is that it is the WM5 phone API on these devices which is returning this error due to a problem in the underlying implementation (by the OEM) of the API."

We will wait until the Lincoln developmental team is able to overcome this issue with the API.

In the meantime, register and click away - this is another dynamic ripple in the world served through symbology.

MS Salesforce Automation Meets PWC Tickertape

Text2Paper - It looks like a timeclock from the movie "Brazil," but one gizmo is actually a mobile phone calendaring accessory created by Microsoft researchers in Cambridge, England. Image Credit: DEAN RUTZ / SEATTLE TIMES

MS Salesforce Automation Meets PWC Tickertape

It's weird, a throwback to a time where typed communications were the standard.

The Dow Jones Index stock trades were once communicated over a wire to a machine that printed out each transaction within minutes of the transaction happening.

This week, Microsoft held a "TechFest" where they unveiled projects that some of the engineers of the company showed off what they had been working on.

Excerpts from the Seattle Times -

Touring Microsoft's TechFest
Posted by Brier Dudley - The Seattle Times - 3-6-2007, 05:22 PM

Here are a few of the demonstrations I saw today at TechFest, the annual "science fair" being held this week by Microsoft's advanced research group.

The company gave press and bloggers an early peek at some of the exhibits before the full show opens up to employees Wednesday and Thursday. Microsoft also posted Webcasts of presentations and demos here.

Some of the projects are being shown for the first time at the event, and the researchers generally don't know if their work will ever end up in an actual product. Some could even end up in products made by other companies, since Microsoft is now licensing the research group's intellectual property.
----
Text2Paper, the device receives and prints short SMS messages sent from phones onto clear stickers. The labels can then be pasted onto an adjacent paper calendar, on the appropriate day. The idea is that family members could send appointments, shopping lists and other info to this system, which would most likely be mounted in a kitchen. Each printout also has a bar code that can be read by camera phones, so you can take a picture of an appointment with your phone and have it automatically synced with the device's calendar.
Reference Here>>

Technology solutions are were you can find them ... even when it makes everything old, new again.