# Latest M$ Ripoffs **URL:** \ **Category:** random\ **Created:** [July 12, 2004, 11:29am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324 "2004-07-12T11:29:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Yeldarb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/51bf81/32.png) [@Yeldarb](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Yeldarb)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 11:29am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/1 "2004-07-12T11:29:52Z")
> Colin Png, director for Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Asia Pacific, highlighted the “SuperFetch” technology which searches and retrieves files quickly based on relationship schemas such as author and not physical locations. In addition, he showed how Web services or XML-based application icons, like a clock, search bar, and [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) purchase tracker, can be dragged and dropped as easily-accessible “tiles” on the software interface. **Source** : [http://www.asiacomputerweekly.com/acw\_ViewArt.cfm?Magid=1&Artid=24328&Catid=2&subcat=19](http://www.asiacomputerweekly.com/acw_ViewArt.cfm?Magid=1&Artid=24328&Catid=2&subcat=19) **Date** : July 12 Just a mere two weeks ago at the WWDC, Apple announced **Spotlight** which is described on Apple’s site as: > Tiger’s new system-wide Spotlight search helps you find anything on your Mac, instantly. Spotlight can find email messages, calendars and contacts along with documents, movies, images — any kind of file — all at once. Spotlight results are displayed in easy-to-understand categories that help you browse, pick and click. Finding the stuff you need on your personal computer is now as fast and effortless as searching for songs in iTunes. Tiger also introduces enhanced searching in the Finder to help you locate files and documents more quickly and easily. New Smart Folders in the Finder, Smart Mailboxes in Mail, and Smart Groups for contacts let you categorize and organize all of your important information into logical groups automatically. and they also announced RSS support in Safari. > When Safari RSS encounters a RSS feed, you can view a page with every headline and article summary right in the browser window. To read the complete article, click on the headline or summary to retrieve the complete Web page. RSS feeds naturally fit into a web browser, making Safari the ideal way to browse the entire web without a second application. Safari RSS has a slider control for customizing the displayed length of each article summary and controls for sorting and filtering displayed articles by Date, Title and Source. Anyone notice some similiarities? I’d say Microsoft’s new “technology” is a direct rip. I hope Apple’s lawyers capitalize on this. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 12:17pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/2 "2004-07-12T12:17:28Z")
Just because they ANNOUNCED it first doesn’t meant that they came up with the idea first 😉 Not trying to defend either side here…I’m just saying that I would need more info before I would call one a rip-off of the other. -teet ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/3 "2004-07-12T12:22:13Z")
Well, in regard to the search feature, in fact Apple has had a prototype out for a few years now. Spotlight uses the same search technology as Apple’s iTunes. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 12:27pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/4 "2004-07-12T12:27:48Z")
yo yeldrab since 0 BC (before computers) microsoft has ripped apple and got away with it… it’s not new… from the mouse to the windows-like OS to anything… ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 1:34pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/5 "2004-07-12T13:34:40Z")
If I’m not mistaken I think the mouse and windows style desktop was a rip from Xerox. So Apple and M$ both ripped from them. But you’re not wrong, really; M$ loves to take ideas from other companies and implement them in their own technologies. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 1:42pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/6 "2004-07-12T13:42:51Z")
MS has mentioned this improved search feature as a part of Longhorn for a really long time. I even saw a demo of a product based on this using an image gallery that organizes images based on background color, author, etc. a few months ago. They also had a movie purchasing app that organizes movies based on your preferences and others’ preferences all in a graphical interface. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/7 "2004-07-12T14:11:23Z")
Here is an article from **October 2003** previewing the exact thing that Apple is announcing only recently: > One of the ways that WinFS will improve searching across Windows machines is a mechanism to store related “metadata” with a given file. The metadata will provide more context and keyword information than Windows applications do today. For example, currently a person can use Windows to view when photos were taken. WinFS is being designed to allow a person to search with more specific information, such as who is in the picture. WinFS also is designed to improve search across several applications on a corporate network. If WinFS is used as the underlying storage system in many applications, a person could search for all documents and data related to a particular topic. **The metadata will be described in “schemas,” or an XML data format. These schemas will define common objects, such as documents, music files and e-mail messages, which the operating system can find and store, Muglia said. Customers can define their own schemas for identifying stored data as well.** The above is from: [http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104\_2-5090584.html](http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5090584.html) from October 2003. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that MS isn’t the only one that is borrowing ideas 😛 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/8 "2004-07-12T14:58:41Z")
right, this is nothing new - besides dragging it to the interface… ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/9 "2004-07-12T15:22:48Z")
Wouldn’t I have to input who was in the picture at some point? I don’t think computers can tell who’s who, and even if they could, you’d think that’d be some sort of privacy violation. (Not searching for the picture, but if it could ID the person) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 3:39pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/10 "2004-07-12T15:39:40Z")
Ok, i guess I stand corrected hehe. But I will point out that Apple is releasing it first 😉 😛 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 3:41pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/11 "2004-07-12T15:41:30Z")
lol _rolling eyes_ too funny man… ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/12 "2004-07-12T18:29:07Z")
> [@Krilnon](#): > > Wouldn’t I have to input who was in the picture at some point? I don’t think computers can tell who’s who, and even if they could, you’d think that’d be some sort of privacy violation. (Not searching for the picture, but if it could ID the person) LOL yes - you would have to do that. But the program automatically scans the picture for color variations (sky, ocean, road, building) and it does a fairly good job narrowing pictures down to only those, for example, that contain a brick wall, etc. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/13 "2004-07-12T19:05:11Z")
There is an internet company that has built a proxy content filter to get rid of nude pictures and such while you surf - it has been able to detect the patterns quite well. So it’s only a matter of time before that comes to normal searching… ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/14 "2004-07-13T01:02:31Z")
This is hardly something to be suprised about anymore. In all industries, implementing other people’s ideas in what you do is really common - if you look you can easily find it. The only thing is it’s easier to spot in the computer industry then in many others (that and it’s a really large industry), so it appears more often. To give you an example of another industry: music. Other people’s ideas are copied all the time, modified slightly, and put out again. Same thing is happening here. Also, video game industry. I’ll let you gamers draw that one. Also, what teet said is true. I remember once having a contest with a few friends on creating a flash animation. I decided to keep what I was doing secret to suprise everyone (and hopefully win) however, the sound clip I was using was exactly the same as my friend, so when he announced what he was doing 1 week before the contest ended, it made me look as if I had copied his idea. You see where this is going. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/15 "2004-07-13T02:33:52Z")
This is nothing new. Longhorn will all be a HUGE rip off OSX. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/16 "2004-07-13T04:16:58Z")
> [@kirupa](#): > > LOL yes - you would have to do that. But the program automatically scans the picture for color variations (sky, ocean, road, building) and it does a fairly good job narrowing pictures down to only those, for example, that contain a brick wall, etc. Yes K, you know how many times I’ve almost killed people in frustration because I couldn’t find a picture with my favorite brick wall in it?? I can’t even begin to count! :sure: ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/latest-m-ripoffs/57324/17 "2004-07-13T16:41:35Z")
Hmm…that’s a tough question. I’m guessing about 23 times 😛