Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California is licensing a broad portfolio of patents and technology to Powerset, a well-financed start-up company, with the aim of developing a search engine that could eventually compete with Google.

Powerset is licensing PARC’s “natural language�? technology, which enables computers to understand and process languages like English or French. The technology would be the basis for a search engine which would understand search queries typed in plain English, rather than keywords.

Source: Platinax

One of the machines Washongton Posts writer used to test Windows Vista, a Gateway laptop, booted into this screen several days ago. Vista had determined that it hadn’t been installed legitimately and locked the computer into what Microsoft calls “reduced functionality” mode–in which you can either type in a valid product key or run Internet Explorer (so as to buy a new Vista license at Microsoft’s site).

How Vista came to this conclusion was not clear. The Gateway laptop didn’t have the company’s standard configuration; Gateway’s PR department had put a stock install of Vista on the thing. But Vista had not alerted me of any problems prior to flipping into the “reduced functionality” pay-up-or-else mode. (What a great phrase that is! The operating system didn’t kneecap the machine, it merely “reduced” its “functionality.”)