jon abad dot com

So Bing’s Visual Search is pretty slick for those times when you know what it looks like, not what its named.

I took a little movie of my search for dogs, and while the animations weren’t captured all that smoothly, you get the gist of it.

Hopefully, as the metadata gets bigger, you’ll be able to do more detailed filtering, but this is a sweet start!

So I started using LiveSearch last year due to the awesome background pictures that they put up every day. As I use it though, i’m pleasantly surprised by what I get back.

Today’s example: “Calories in a cherry”

Bing’s response:

and Google’s:

In this case, Bing’s response was better as it gave me the answer I was looking for right off the bat, not just pages to go through. The pages listed for both result sets do look like they’d have the right answer though.

Someone got took some sneak video of the Zune HD at the GDGT party this past week: ZuneHD Demo.

The screen is so bright that it looks like its been CGI’d into the shot!

Hi Ben,

I just saw your quote on Joystiq and I have a qualm to share. You said:

"I think when people come to Xbox they’re not really looking so much for functional, they really want to have fun, they want to be wowed." – Ben Smith

Let me share that while I want to want to have fun and be wowed, those things don’t happen if it doesn’t work. The fun of the Netflix experience is being able to find all sorts of things that I didn’t know I’d like. Being able to see genres that I like is a nice upgrade but it doesn’t compare with the following scenario:

A couple comes home after a long day and wants to relax with some takeout and a movie. They turn on their Xbox to select a movie from their Netflix subscription.

They skim through the instant queue and flick over to recommendations. Nothing scratches that itch and then She remembers a movie that her girlfriend just saw. They search for it and it starts to play in HD.

Even with the new dash upgrade, you still need your computer to search the Netflix collection and then queue something up.

Trust me, I’m drowning in the irony of complaining about something that I couldn’t do a couple of years ago. I also understand that you probably have plans to add search later on and can’t comment on upcoming features, but your quote makes you sound like a jerk. And i’m pretty sure that you’re not a jerk.

Thanks for listening. Now get out there and win one for the Gipper.

Jon – Xbox Live Gold veteran and Netflix subscriber

I’d heard of this fancy new Lego Digital Box experience last month and got to try it tonight at the Burlington Mall’s Lego Store.

It doesn’t work with every box but when it does, its really something special.

Here I am checking out a giant prop plane model! On the other side, is the cargo door and loader which was animated as well as a luggage truck, its a pretty slick thing!

I’m mightily impressed with the Palm Pre. Folks are saying things like “Palm’s hail mary” and “Palm’s iPhone killer” and they’re definitely heading in the right direction!

Until today, I was thinking that I’d probably move to an HTC Touch Pro/HD later in the year but seeing the ideas that are in place in the Palm Pre is definitely making me keep an open mind to switching to Sprint to get on this phone!

First, the shape: touch screen with arched slider to a portrait keyboard. Looks comfy and I’m already used to the portrait keyboard.

Second, their "webOS” and Synergy system to synchronize calendars, contacts and messaging so that you can see everything in one place. One contact holds the information from Outlook, Gmail, IM services and phones and it keeps it together. Apparently, the messaging is such that you can start a conversation via text and finish via IM or vice versa!

Third, apps run in the background and you can easily switch between them, whether they are multiple apps or multiple webpages.

I’ve been on AT&T for so long that I don’t even know if Sprint coverage is good enough for me. Oh well, neither pricing nor availability have been announced so there’s time for these things to work themselves out!