Google pizza really something to bite into

As Bill Gates transitions out of his executive life at Microsoft, we can't help but wonder if he's starting to loosen up a bit. At least when it comes to the subject of Google.

When asked about the company recently, the former chief software architect seemed to have a little fun with Google. Or maybe he was just hungry.

"They're in this honeymoon phase of Google can do anything at all times," Gates told the San Jose Mercury News. "If it was rumored they were doing pizza, you'd think it was going to be zero calories and free."

Actually, Google does make pizza, and it is free — for the employees at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. As for the zero-calorie part, well, someone must be making it part of their 20 percent "other projects" time. ...

Link to links

After the rainy November, is someone at Amazon.com really thinking about golf? On Friday, the company announced its top picks for the holidays in a number of categories. For electronics, the picks included a seven-megapixel digital camera, an iPod Video and the $449.99 Bushnell Yardage Pro Golf Pinseeker 1500 Laser Rangefinder. We're not sure what that is, but at that price it had better make free pizza, too.

Suffer the buffer

Mobile and wireless


The number of mobile broadband users is expected to reach 500 million worldwide by 2010

Source: Strategy Analytics

Amazon took some heat earlier this year when it unveiled a movie-download service that was buggy and inconsistent for some customers. Was Microsoft paying attention? Microsoft unveiled its Xbox movie and television show download service last week to some not-so-rave reviews.

The service was plagued with technical problems, which Xbox Live team member Larry Hryb attributed to a high number of downloads. Microsoft is working to resolve the problems, Hryb wrote on his blog. You'd think that of any company out there, Microsoft would have the know-how to avoid this kind of thing in the first place.

Free fall?

The search-engine market is not a pretty scene these days for Microsoft. The SearchEngineWatch blog analyzed search stats from three measurement firms last week and found Google still leads the market, Yahoo! remains strong and Microsoft is continuing a slow slide.

Download, a column of news bits, observations and miscellany, is gathered by The Seattle Times technology staff. We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or biztech@seattletimes.com.