Every election cycle in the U.S. is usually wild and weird as it is. Now, Bing will be taking cracks at predicting who will win this season’s House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races.
Officially dubbed the “Elections & Voter Guide 2014,” the page also serves as a hub for election-related news, and you can use it to break down information based on individual states, and more. The hub, which is currently in beta, also contains separate pages for poll results. Using an interactive map, it also shows you how offices are divided on a party affiliation basis.
The poll results page doesn’t contain any information at this point. Bing says that you should “check back soon for the latest poll results,” so we imagine that this will get filled up sometime between now and Election Day.
The guide also contains a link to a voter registration page, will tell you where you can vote, provide you with election trivia, and much more.
With this initiative, Microsoft hopes to educate voters, according to the company’s blog post.
“Politics aside, our goal with Bing Elections and the personalized Voter Guide is to arm voters so they can make decisions based on the most comprehensive and best information available,” Derrick Connell, Microsoft’s Corporate VP of Bing says. “Whether it’s the senate race at the national level or a proposition affecting your city, we’re hoping to give you the confidence to make the most out of your vote.”
It will be interesting to see whether famed election result predictor Nate Silver will be more accurate during this cycle, or whether Bing can seize the prediction guru crown from him.
Keep in mind that you’ll only be able to use this service in “major metropolitan markets,” Microsoft says.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.