SF Signal: MicroSearch

MicroSearch

Microsoft launched their new search engine today. Search types include web, news, images, Encarta and desktop. Desktop search, allowing you to do local machine searches, requires the installation of MSN Toolbar Suite Beta. The tool is geared towards "answers" and not just links, according to one VP. That's just in case the letter from Bill Gates wasn't enough for someone I guess.

So, as always, my acid test for a new search engine is "science fiction". The results are as expected. The "science fiction" image search yields a different set than the Google result set. And the Encarta results provide even more sf goodness.

The corresponding news search is interesting - page 2 led me to a story of Gunslinging Robots. Gunslinging Zombie Robots would have been cooler, but hey, not bad for the first day. Curiously, Gunslinging Zombie Robots yields no results on MSN but 194 Google hits. So it would seem that MSN is doing some filtering, trying to weed out what it determines to be noise. Searcher beware! (Caveat Searcher?)

Well, it seems like James at BDO has the dubious distinction of being the #1 hit for "science fiction blog".

Sure, but where do the masses flock when they want to know about recombinant lexography? I think I've made my point.

Posted by John on Tuesday February 01, 2005 at 10:12 AM

Zombie robots open up all kinds of interesting questions. Such as:

As we all know, zombies are basically you're slow moving (usually), brain-munching version of the undead. Now are robots, as machines, really 'alive' or not? If not 'alive', would you consider them to be undead (moving around and all, but not alive)? Could you ever have a zombie robot? I'd think a robot would be rather smart to begin with, even if undead, and wouldn't need to eat any brains, even taking into account their superhuman strength which allows for the easy open skulls. If you could have a zombie robot, would they help keep the lights on in case of accidental, or intentional, world-wide zombification? Does MSN search help answer any of these questions? Stay tuned.

Oh, and don't star with the undead, time travelling Nazi zombie robots. Those guys are just plain evil.

Posted by jp on Tuesday February 01, 2005 at 11:14 AM