I literally laughed out loud this morning when I saw these sponsored ads on a search results page at Bing:
(No, I didn’t bother clicking.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world…
The beta of Windows 8 (officially called the Consumer Preview) will be publicly released in “late February.”
Here are some links that might help you get caught up.
- Looking ahead to Windows 8: five big questions for Microsoft (by me at ZDNet)
- Windows 8: Why the coming beta is likely to be labeled the ‘consumer preview’ (by Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet)
- Windows 8 has a special Bing homepage, Consumer Preview name all but confirmed IMichael Gillett, LiveSide)
I’m also soliciting feedback on whether and how you plan to test the Windows 8 beta … sorry, Consumer Preview. Please take a second to vote in this ZDNet poll. If you have any additional suggestions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments here.
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
Not sure how I’m going to test the, ehem, Beta. If it’s feature complete enough, I’ll install it on one of my main machines so I can get a full impact of it. I don’t have a tablet that it’ll install on yet. I’m wondering if it will eventually be able to install on some Android tables currently on the market? I do have a Tegra 2 based tablet. Seems that might be mainstream enough for it to work there, if possible.
LOL Ed, I never see the ad’s because I use an adblocking extension for Chrome and Firefox. I don’t use IE at all unless I am at work for a school board website that needs IE. Maybe I should just so that I can keep up with what is going on. 🙂
I wonder how much of Google’s ad revenues come from these computer-generated ads from Wal-mart, Target, eBay, Amazon, etc. As opposed to truly targeted ads.
Tom, that isn’t a Google ad, Ed says it’s on Bing.
…and what gives you the idea it’s not “truly targeted”?