Fantastic overview of the current search engine landscape from MIT's Tech Review. Excerpt:



"Take Microsoft Research’s AskMSR program, which Brill and his colleagues have been testing on Microsoft’s internal network for more than a year. At its core is a simple search box where users can enter questions such as “Who killed Abraham Lincoln?” and, instead of getting back a list of sites that may have the information they seek, receive a plain answer: “John Wilkes Booth.” The software relies not on any advanced artificial-intelligence algorithm but rather on two surprisingly simple tricks..."

1. Question	How many eggs are in a baker’s dozen?
2. Rewrite query	“There are” + “eggs in a” + “baker’s dozen” “A baker’s dozen has” + “eggs” “baker’s” + “dozen” “eggs”
3. Collect search results and filter(for example, ignore results that do not resemble an answer to a “how many” question)	“A dozen usually has 12 eggs, so how many eggs does a baker’s dozen have?” “The Baker’s ozen Cookbook” “Why are 13 eggs called a baker’s dozen?” “13 eggs make a baker’s dozen.”
4. Extract answers from text and present most likely answers	13 eggs (81 percent likely) 12 eggs (7 percent likely)/TD>

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I noticed some really cheap Microsoft bundles on eBay: 10 copies of Windows, Office, etc. for $299... which turns out, I think, to be the:



Microsoft Action Pack



In addition, Microsoft seems to have dropped the price of the "Empower ISV" program to $375 (which is a FANTASTIC price for an MSDN Universal subscription):



Empower ISV Program



If you don't have MSDN Universal... heck, at this price, you'd be crazy not to get it.