Microsoft on its Way OUT? Windows 8 To Have a Ribbon Interface -- A Disaster in the Making

Few things in computer interface programming are as bad, in our opinion, as the "ribbon" used in Microsoft Word since the version 2007. It clutters up the top of the screen with superfluous nearly useless elements for grade-schoolers that take up gigantic amounts of space, rather than concentrating on time-saving methods for finding the frequently-used commands that one needs AND USES.

As we wrote last year at LawPundit in Microsoft Word in Business at Shauna Kelly : A Very Useful Website for Assistance with Microsoft Word at Various Levels of User Competence:

"The graphic user interface for Microsoft Word starting with Word 2007 is a disaster of programming by people who apparently never write anything themselves.

We can't find anything via the totally non-intuitive interface which seems to be designed by fashion models who are thinking "pretty", and forgetting that a word processor is a "tool", where the most important design features should be speed and ease of use -- the fewer clicks the better -- the fewer menus the better -- the simpler the better. In our opinion, the graphic interface of Word 2007 is the worst ever."

Now we read with astonishment at CNET News that

Windows 8 screenshots reveal a ribbon interface.

In our opinion, this is a sign that Microsoft has been taken over by theoretical fashionistas who have lost sight of the fact that serious users use Microsoft programs to perform WORK and that they place a premium on time and money.

I have already been playing with using Open Office as my default text program to get away from the hated ribbon interface on Microsoft Word. That the Microsoft Word 2007 et seq. "bungle" is to be extended to Windows is incredible.

The companies of the future appear to be the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and those newbies that are sure to come, including the programs of open source, including Linux. Microsoft appears to be on its way out to this observer.

Over the last 5 years, Microsoft has been producing largely junk as software and the practical design of their software has been getting worse and worse. Apparently, people with no vision are at the controls.

Libel & Defamation Law in the EU: Google Rightly Loses Libel Case in Italy for Libelous Search Suggestions Generated by Autocompletion Computer Algorithms

Sometimes we disagree with Italy, and sometimes we agree.

This time, WE AGREE as Google loses defamation case in Italy.

Google's autocompletion feature -- run by computer algorithms --
led to cases of libelous search suggestions, by computer.

Obviously, that is intolerable.
We are no friends of libel.

Italy is correct in saying that libel is libel, computer-written or otherwise.