5 ms·

Oh what? That is really bad. Epub support in edge was the one thing I used and was impressed by. The text looked great and it supported very good read-aloud tha

Oh what? That is really bad. Epub support in edge was the one thing I used and was impressed by. The text looked great and it supported very good read-aloud that tracked the words in the text. I was impressed how well it read tricky things like numbers and sub-clauses. If you switched to one of the British accents, crank the speed to 2x and it was a great way to power through some books that might have become a slog. When you begin to tire, switch the gender of the voice and it suddenly becomes more digestible again. I just don't know why MS spends so much time shooting itself in it's feet. So much talent and promising product gets burned for indecipherable reasons.

mips_avatar 7y ago
Killing decent products is the Google way. Now that Microsoft is using chromium maybe the Google way is seeping in.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  It used to be that Microsoft was famous for vaporware--product announcements that never materialized, to take the wind out of competitors' sails. Not sure which I like better.
  - sebazzz 7y ago
    Microsoft is also good in building features that don't work or are unusable in any normal use case. Like Knockout support in Visual Studio: I have never seen it working. I believe SQL Server also has a few features that were until the current versions not really usable.
- jeffk_teh_haxor 7y ago
  Uh huh. You should visit the Building 17 courtyard sometime, it's basically a graveyard for defunct MS products.
- userbinator 7y ago
  Invasive telemetry and profiting from ads instead of selling software is definitely the "Google way" and it's been taking over MS since at least the beginnings of Windows 10 (remember the forced "free upgrade"?)
  - mips_avatar 7y ago
    Do you support telemetry if it makes the product better, and not used for ad targeting?
    - justinclift 7y ago
      Only if it's optional, and can be turned off completely.
      - andrewbinstock 7y ago
        And if its presence is made clear upfront, rather than buried deep in a Terms of Use contract.
    - lewisj489 7y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted. Telemtery can be a invaluable tool for a whole bunch of reasons. It should, of course, be optional. I think only 1 type of telemetry shouldn't ask for permission, a quick, anonymous ping to say it's been installed.
      - tremon 7y ago
        a quick, anonymous ping Sure, but for it to be anonymous it should not contain the sender's IP address. That probably means an UDP message with nulled source ip, which runs foul of many ISP's egress filters (and rightly so). So, realistically speaking, there is no such thing as an anonymous ping. Or am I missing an obvious solution here?
        jefftk 7y ago
- Razengan 7y ago
  > Killing decent products is the Google way. If you were around since the 1990s, you'd notice that Google learned this from Microsoft.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Microsoft is the king of backwards compatibility. They might propose a new framework every now and then, but they still support the old decades on...
liability 7y ago
It's obviously not a configuration suitable for everybody, but I read epubs in a similar manner with Emacs, using the read-aloud and nov packages. It highlights each sentence as it's read, using the system TTS (MacOS's `say` in my case.) (use-package read-aloud :ensure t) (setq read-aloud-engine "say") (use-package nov :ensure t) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.epub\\'" . nov-mode)) (bind-key* "M-SPC" 'read-aloud-buf)
wodenokoto 7y ago
> I just don't know why MS spends so much time shooting itself in it's feet. Removing a (great) feature that almost no one uses, in a product that is being sunset is shooting oneself in the foot?

mips_avatar 7y ago

Killing decent products is the Google way. Now that Microsoft is using chromium maybe the Google way is seeping in.

nitrogen 7y ago
It used to be that Microsoft was famous for vaporware--product announcements that never materialized, to take the wind out of competitors' sails. Not sure which I like better.
- sebazzz 7y ago
  Microsoft is also good in building features that don't work or are unusable in any normal use case. Like Knockout support in Visual Studio: I have never seen it working. I believe SQL Server also has a few features that were until the current versions not really usable.
jeffk_teh_haxor 7y ago
Uh huh. You should visit the Building 17 courtyard sometime, it's basically a graveyard for defunct MS products.
userbinator 7y ago
Invasive telemetry and profiting from ads instead of selling software is definitely the "Google way" and it's been taking over MS since at least the beginnings of Windows 10 (remember the forced "free upgrade"?)
- mips_avatar 7y ago
  Do you support telemetry if it makes the product better, and not used for ad targeting?
  - justinclift 7y ago
    Only if it's optional, and can be turned off completely.
    - andrewbinstock 7y ago
      And if its presence is made clear upfront, rather than buried deep in a Terms of Use contract.
  - lewisj489 7y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. Telemtery can be a invaluable tool for a whole bunch of reasons. It should, of course, be optional. I think only 1 type of telemetry shouldn't ask for permission, a quick, anonymous ping to say it's been installed.
    - tremon 7y ago
      a quick, anonymous ping Sure, but for it to be anonymous it should not contain the sender's IP address. That probably means an UDP message with nulled source ip, which runs foul of many ISP's egress filters (and rightly so). So, realistically speaking, there is no such thing as an anonymous ping. Or am I missing an obvious solution here?
      - jefftk 7y ago
Razengan 7y ago
> Killing decent products is the Google way. If you were around since the 1990s, you'd notice that Google learned this from Microsoft.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Microsoft is the king of backwards compatibility. They might propose a new framework every now and then, but they still support the old decades on...

liability 7y ago

It's obviously not a configuration suitable for everybody, but I read epubs in a similar manner with Emacs, using the read-aloud and nov packages. It highlights each sentence as it's read, using the system TTS (MacOS's `say` in my case.) (use-package read-aloud :ensure t) (setq read-aloud-engine "say") (use-package nov :ensure t) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.epub\\'" . nov-mode)) (bind-key* "M-SPC" 'read-aloud-buf)

wodenokoto 7y ago

> I just don't know why MS spends so much time shooting itself in it's feet. Removing a (great) feature that almost no one uses, in a product that is being sunset is shooting oneself in the foot?