Microsoft "Experimentation Platform"

What the Heck is this? Anyone know?

Microsoft is working on an "Experimentation Platform" for innovation on the Windows Live platform.


"The Experimentation Platform will enable product groups at Microsoft and developers using Windows Live to innovate using controlled experiments with live users," according to a Web page dedicated to the effort. "Such a platform will enable testing new ideas quickly using the best-known scientific method for establishing causality between a feature and its effects: randomized experimental design."

The site, however, is a recruiting site rather than the project itself, according to Microsoft. "We are always looking to rapidly innovate on our services and platform, and encouraging experimentation is important here," a company representative said in an email.

MS Word - Hidden Tags

From the Chronicle of Higher Education.... wow, people really don't know about these features, do they?

"The peer-review process at many academic journals is intended to be blind, meaning that authors do not know who is reviewing their work. But a little-known setting in Microsoft Word has led to the unmasking of some peer reviewers, compromising the anonymity of the process.

Keyne A. Cheshire, an assistant professor of classics at Davidson College, in North Carolina, is new to scholarly publishing. He recently discovered the problem by accident. After submitting an article to a journal in his field, he received a reviewer report by e-mail, forwarded from the journal's editor (he declined to name the journal or editor). The report, which Mr. Cheshire said included some "hefty criticism" of his article, arrived as a Microsoft Word file attached to the e-mail message.

When Mr. Cheshire opened the document, he noticed that it seemed to have been created using a British version of Word. Curious, he clicked on the document's preferences and was surprised to see a screen labeled "Summary" that listed the name of the person who had created the document — someone in his discipline whom he knew."

Oops!