Columns Archive

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Internet Explorer Makes TV Commercial Debut

By
Josh Martin
– March 7, 2012

If you haven’t tried IE9 for some reason yet, GET ON IT. I will openly admit I was a Firefox guy for years while Internet Explorer was getting its act together. Once IE9 came out, I was instantly sold. Microsoft is now showing off Internet Explorer in the form of TV commercials so you can expect to see this flashy, sexy, sleek ad on your big screen very soon!

We here at Zunited are pretty pumped about Microsoft’s new marketing methods.

Oh and the song is “Too Close” by Alex Clare.

What do YOU think of this commercial? Sound off in the comments below!

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Windows Phone Screen Brag

By
Brian Weston
– February 24, 2012

I thought it would be interesting for people to compare what their tile screens look like because everyone does it differently. First tell everyone your theme. Second, lay out your screen like this: App Name – App Name. If you have a double wide you should say something like -Pictures-

Here is mine:

Background DARK / Accent GREEN

Wifi Status – Todo List
Me – Messaging
Facebook – Carbon
Email 1 – Email 2
-Calendar-
Qwiki – Google
Marketplace – Appflow
USA Today – ESPN
Zune – Stop the Music
USAA – Words by Post
Apict – XBOX Live
My Starbucks Card – Maps
Netflix – Amazon Kindle
Tango – Lync 2010
-HTC Weather-
-Pictures-
Phone – Settings

What does your screen look like?

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Best Buy Runs Out of ZuneHDs

By
Dario
– February 21, 2012

If you take a quick gander at the wares of the big box retailer, Best Buy, you’ll notice a glaring omission, at least to us Zune fans. The website has ceased to carry any Microsoft Zune devices and services like Zune Pass. We knew of the Zune HD’s demise, and as the time goes by there probably will be less and less retailers offering the device completely.

Although the device and first party accessories might not be present, there are a few third party screen protectors still appearing for those of us still looking to prolong the well being of our ill fated hardware. As Best Buy seems to be one of the biggest retailers for electronics, the days are probably numbered for those other online and physical stores selling the much beloved, yet incredibly dismissed by consumers, Zune HD.

Hang on folks, sadly it’s only bound to get worse.

Still looking for a Zune HD? Let us know, and others where you find one! Shout out in the comments below on the dire state of the Zune HD. Don’t forget to add us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

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Xbox Live Weekly Update 2/15-2/22

By
kfemmel
– February 15, 2012

This week is a bit slower for Xbox gamers. You can put your cape back on to run through some DLC in Batman Arkham City at a cheaper price, or take Commander Shepard for a spin in what could be the Normandy crew’s last adventure.

Xbox Live Weekly Sale

Get Batman DLC on sale this week!


So you were a little put off by having paid DLC for Batman Arkham City when it launched last October. The days of publishers shipping games complete without the need for first day priced expansions for the public to get the full experience is behind us.

If you waited this long you can at least get content for Batman Arkham City for cheap. You can get the Nightwing and Robin bundle packs for 360 Microsoft points. That is 35% off their normal price, down to $3.50 USD.

If you’re looking to dress up your avatar, check out the Batarang prop and Batmobile toy for 220 Microsoft points or the Bat Signal for 160 Microsoft points.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Xbox Live Weekly Update 2/7-2/13

By
kfemmel
– February 7, 2012

This week is a busy week for discounts for the Xbox enthusiast. Not only can you score major deals on a full year of Xbox Live, but two stellar games are releasing at retail, along with a huge sale by Square Enix. Ha, and you thought this was finally the year you were going to spend your savings on the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? Sorry, not during an unusually strong first week of February.

Xbox Live Weekly Sale

Get a full 12 months of Xbox Live Gold for $20 off at various retailers this week.

 

The biggest Xbox Live related sale isn’t even on XBLA games this week. From February 5th until February 11th you can pick up a 12 month Xbox Live subscription card for $39.99 at multiple retailers. Head to your local Toys’r’Us, Best Buy or GameStop.

Go on a quest with Crimson Alliance for a third of the price you would normally pay.

As for the weekly Xbox Live sales, Crimson Alliance is your deal of the week. You can pick up this action-RPG with all character classes for 800 Microsoft points, or purchase each class individually (Assassin, Mercenary, Wizard) for 560 Microsoft points. All of these are on sale for roughly 30% off their normal price.

There is a lot of Square Enix content on sale, Seriously, a lot.

Not to be outdone, Square Enix is having a huge sale on content from various games. You can pick up Explosion Mission Pack for Deus Ex: Human Revolution for 140 Microsoft points, Tactical Enhancement Pack for 80 Microsoft points, and The Missing Link for 600 Microsoft points. All of these Deus Ex items are roughly half off.

Continuing with the publisher sale, you can score the Black Market Aerial and Boom packs for Just Cause 2 for just one dollar. You can grab A Hazardous Reunion Challenge Pack 3, All The Trappings Challenge Pack 1, and the Raziel & Kain Character Pack all for 200 Microsoft points. The DLC for Tomb Raider: Underworld is on sale for half off, with Beneath the Ashes, and Lara’s Shadow clocking in at 400 Microsoft points.

Xbox 360 Retail Game Releases

The Darkness II

The Darkness 2 wants to play with you.

Gamers everywhere have been raving about the demo for The Darkness II for the last few weeks and the wait for the game is finally over. The Darkness II takes place two years after the original, The Darkness, and Jackie Estacado is engulfed in an all-out mob war after an attempt is made on his life. He still can’t forget the brutal murder of his girlfriend during the first game, and the Darkness inside him is resurfacing.

Gamers can quad wield weapons (you read that right) by firing two separate weapons with Jackie’s human arms while using his demon arms at the same time. There is four player campaign co-op over Xbox Live and the story is helmed by the Paul Jenkins who not only wrote the story for The Darkness but for many famous comic books, like The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Kingdoms of Amalur is being praised as the Skyrim killer by some media outlets.

Fans of Western RPGs who were turned off by the distinctly Japanese flavor of Final Fantasy XIII-2 last week will be pleased to know they have quite the role playing game to delve into this week. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is being described in some circles as a deep RPG with the simplicity of combat found in Fable.

Some great minds collaborated to bring you Kingdoms of Amalur like best-selling author R.A. Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, and lead designer of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Ken Rolston.

Games on Demand

If you’re already planning for a future where all entertainment content is digitally distributed then this week’s additions to Microsoft’s Games on Demand service for Xbox Live should be of interest to you. This week you aren’t getting any notable additions to the service, instead you can get three older titles at a cheaper price.

Discounts on Games on Demand this week: Battlestations Pacific for $24.49 (25% off), Just Cause 2 for $24.49 (25% off), and Tomb Raider: Underworld for $14.99 (25% off)

Xbox Live Arcade releases

You can look forward to Shank 2, as well as some insane Batman inspired FPS action in Gotham City Impostors this week.

Game Demos

If you are the type of person who prefers to try a game before you buy it, but can’t find a copy of new releases to rent anywhere near you then you can look forward to demos for Kinect Disneyland Adventures and Kinectimals Now With Bears.

What games are you most eager to get your hands on? Let us know on the comment section below. Don’t forget to add us on Twitter and Facebook as well to keep up with all the Zunited.net news.

 

 

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Windows Phone App Showcase: Lo-mob

By
Dario
– August 28, 2011

Lomography has taken a spot in the photography world; a niche yet cool technique derived from shooting pictures with low resolution, analogue cameras. The effects are more artistic and peculiar, rather than focused and professional. It’s all about feeling rather than perfection. So with that intent on creating art through low-fi tools, a parallel world exists in smartphones where typically its cameras aren’t up to snuff when competing with point-and-shoot or DSLRs. An obvious marriage of convenience, developers have created a plethora of apps to instantly add effects to mimic lo-mo results with less than stellar cameras.

One of these apps is Lo-mob, developed by Aestesis. Lo-mob for Windows Phone is a great addition to anyone seeking filters and frames that mimic those lomography cameras. With over 30 plus filters to tinker with, you’ll instantly create interesting compositions of everyday life, right on your phone. It also helps that it’s a very well made app. The ease of use is something to be commended. Any picture taken or used from the phone’s library, is previewed in the list of filters. It’s a convenient way to quickly look at results without having to go through the filters one-by-one. It saves time, and it makes the process that much easier.

But all that fancy efficiency wouldn’t be worth it if the results weren’t pretty to look at. Thankfully, Lo-mob delivers here as well. The effects and outcomes are pretty darn nice, as you can see above. Not every filter is a keeper as there are some that I have not found to my liking, but the contrary is also true, as you’ll quickly build a list of preferred filters.

If sharing your creations to the world is your thing, the app also allows you to post onto Twitter. It will even add the #lomob and #wp7 hashtags for you, as well as allow you to place your own comment to the tweet. There are plenty of people out there sharing their own pictures on Twitter, and you’ll quickly realize that it’s gaining its own mini movement. Once you have taken your pictures for a social spin, you can also save your work, giving you the option to save as a small or large format file.

Now there are a few small shortcomings with this version of Lo-mob, as there are multiple features that are missing from this app. For one, you can’t re-frame a picture in the filter. Sometimes you have to be more exact when taking the picture so that you wont have cut-off heads or subject matter. It’s a bit of a drag to have a picture that you’d like to use only to have to scrap it because it just doesn’t fit right within the frame provided by the app. Also, the option to edit certain aspects of the filter and what sort of output resolutions for various picture sharing sites are absent. Hopefully Aestesis updates this app to make it that much better by adding these features that iPhone users already enjoy.

Even then, this is a neat little hobby that can be fun and for the artistic Windows Phone users, something to get behind. With Lo-mob taking pictures and making them look vintage or black & white or just plain old is a lot of fun and feeds that little ambition of being a quirky photographer. You can find the app for $1.99 in the marketplace.

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Not so subtle product placement: ‘Chuck’ maps location on Bing, ’90210′ uses Windows Live Photo Gallery

By
Michael Collado
– July 29, 2011

It’s that time again where we notice the Microsoft products perfectly placed in the images our tube is projecting into our living rooms. It’s been quite a while since our last Not So Subtle Product Placement post, so we definitely have missed some along the way, but we’ve got two shows placed a Microsoft product in them recently (somewhat, okay not really at all…) for this week’s post — and we think you’ll like it.

As always, do not under any circumstances read this post unless you’re up to date with the following shows and if you know of any Microsoft product placement we’ve missed, make sure to contact us!

Bing on Chuck

The setup:
In the season four finale of Chuck, Chuck’s soon-to-be wife Sarah is withering away into death because their former arch nemesis’ daughter, who has now become their current arch nemesis, used “The Device” to kill her. “The Device” is… well, a device… that uses someone’s DNA to target them and kill them, sonically, I’m guessing. Since Vivian Volkoff (the daughter and current nemesis) used it from halfway around the world, it doesn’t work as instantly as it should have. Thus, Sarah is sent into a life-threatening fever with only 24 hours to live.

Chuck then makes it his mission (literally, this is a spy show after all) to find the antidote, but to do this he has to track down and break Alexei Volkoff (the father and former nemesis) out of federal prison.

Where the product placement comes in:

Since The Eraser, a new character set to be Chuck’s main obstacle this entire episode, is moving Alexei from one prison to another, Chuck figures the best way to bust him out is while they’re on the move. He he gears up his motorcycle while his team member, Casey, and his mom, Mary, try to locate where he is in relation to Alexei back at Castle, their base.

Naturally, Mary uses Bing to find a map of California. And as a true mother would, she searches the term “ca map” instead of clicking on the “Maps” tab on the right. It’s a good thing she had that Bing page up because it’s not like the CIA has any maps at their disposal or anything. Regardless, she succeeds and Bing brings up a map of Victorville, California. Fantastic! Now Sarah doesn’t have to die from a DNA-using, sonically-murderous, poison-thing of some kind. Well, except that there’s a catch or two left.

How subtle, or not subtle, is it?
Subtle? Not at all. Why exactly would Mary need to look up a map of Victorville on Bing? Bing isn’t going to tell you where Alexei is. Bing isn’t going to tell you where Chuck is. Bing is just going to give you a map so that you know where streets and locations are. Other than that, there is absolutely no use for it here.

And in that case, there is no reason to be searching for a map.

Windows Live Photo Gallery on 90210

The setup and where the product placement comes in:

If I’m being honest, I don’t exactly watch 90210, but was going to at least watch this episode to find out what the setup was and everything. Zunited’s own Javier told me, in an email, “don’t bother.” I tend to listen when people say that about teen dramas like 90210 (cue the hate mail). Instead, I’ll tell you the setup in Javier’s own words:

The girl, Naomi, was trying to [write] an essay for a class, otherwise she’ll go to summer school after her senior year. And her nerd boyfriend Max was trying to help her do the essay. And that’s when [Windows Live] Photo Gallery appears; when she was supposed to be working on the essay, she was messing around with pics.

And there you have it.

How subtle, or not subtle, is it?
Let me get this straight: a teenager uses her laptop for recreational purposes instead of doing actual schoolwork, and she’s messing around with pictures and she’s a girl (well, otherwise “she” would be a “guy” and that could get confusing). Uh, yes, this has to be the best use of product placement (and most subtle) ever. Not only that, but it seems like Microsoft actually got them to show off a feature; Max’s eyes are closed and then she fixes it with another image in which his eyes are open.

With all respect to being PC, girls (okay, some guys, too) would otherwise just crop him out because they look way too good in the picture to have it ruined by the other person. This is perfect. Props on finding a product that would integrate well; at least Naomi wasn’t just Binging(?) something. I don’t grade subtleties but… oh, what the heck, A+!

Microsoft-branded laptops

It’s a complicated issue about what laptop you should use if you don’t make laptops. It’s easy for Apple; for Microsoft, not so much. That’s why Microsoft came up with the Lenovo Microsoft-branded laptop. It’s black. It’s a Lenovo. And it sports a Microsoft sticker on the back. (Note: we don’t actually know if it’s a sticker.)

Here they are in both Chuck and 90210, whether they’re subtle or not is up to you:

 

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Windows Phone Game of the Week & Deal of the Week

By
Dario
– May 25, 2011

Wet & Wild


Published by Microsoft Game Studios
Price: $4.99

Today Microsoft released this week’s Game of the Week. Hydro Thunder Go comes to you via the Zune Marketplace at a price of $4.99. This title is a throwback to old Hydro Thunder games, the ones you’ve come to know in all bowling arcades everywhere.

Boasting a boatload (pun intended) of watered down tracks and vehicles, you will be able to compete in online leaderboards across two different modes: time attack and Hydro Blaze. Great visuals and interactive tracks help round out the package in what looks to be a solid title for all Windows Phone 7 gamers out there.

Think About This…

Published by Microsoft Game Studios
Price:$1.99

If you’re looking for a thoughtful experience then this week’s deal of the week will suit you. Game Chest: Logic Games carries a price tag of $1.99 for the duration of the next seven days. This title allows you to play three different logic games. You can play Sudoku, the classic Minesweeper and the only XboxLive multiplayer title, Chess.

Yes, this is the only title right now that allows multiplayer games through the XboxLive service. If you fancy some brain teasing games then you can pick up Game Chest: Logic Games from the marketplace.

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Not so subtle product placement: Bing and WLM (not Skype!) video chatting on The Vampire Diaries

By
Michael Collado
– May 14, 2011

Our last Not so subtle product placement post was actually a bit popular — which made me eternally happy that people wanted to read (or cared about) something I’ve been wanting to write for so long — so I figured that I might as well continue! Though I do have one concern which is that perhaps the title of this, shall we call it recurring column of sorts (?), is a tad bit long. So if you have any suggestions, please be sure to leave them below. I’m kind of happy with the name, however. And as always, if I missed a not so subtle product placement, please write it in the comments for everyone to know (I have yet to watch all the programming I normally do during the week so I know I probably missed something from even shows I avidly watch)!

And absolutely super importantly: if you are not up to date with the following shows, do not read what’s below as they contain spoilers. Go watch them, and then report back.

Bing and Windows Live Messenger on The Vampire Diaries

The setup:
In the second season finale of The CW’s (only hit) series, The Vampire Diaries, which aired this past Thursday, May 12th, 2011, the supernatural premise of the show went into overdrive. Thanks to Matt, Sheriff Forbes knows (once again) that the person she’s been trusting the most to get rid of vampires in her town is a vampire himself. The bubbling dynamic between Matt and the sheriff came to a conclusion a couple of weeks back when Forbes said she’d “take care of it.” And boy did she take care of it. Not! She was definitely, what people in “the biz” like to call, carrying the Idiot Ball.

(And by people in the biz I mean… couch potatoes who generally read way too many spoilers.)

Idiot Ball is what people call when a character is made out to be utterly and incomprehensibly stupid just to make the plot work. In this case, Sheriff Forbes shot at Damon, but since he’s a vampire he moved out of the way quickly and the person behind him — Elena’s brother Jeremy — was killed. The fact that a police officer would just shoot blindly like that, and the fact that someone who’s been chasing vampires and knows that their (and anyone’s!) first instinct is to run away from a gun pointed at them, and the fact that she wouldn’t look at who’s behind him (!!!) is never explained. But whatever, it moves the plot forward. Jeremy’s warlock girlfriend then revives him using a spell that her dead ancestors’ spirits tell her will cause some consequences they will need to face.

Where the product placement comes in:

After his resurrection, Jeremy takes to Bing to search stories of people that have come back from the dead. Though I’m surprised one name didn’t pop up… like, I don’t know… Jesus. While doing so he gets a call from his girlfriend Bonnie to video chat via Windows Live Messenger, where during the conversation he thanks her for, like, bringing him back to life or whatever. Because he couldn’t be bothered with telling her that when he resurrected. It’s just not the kind of conversation you have face-to-face.

How subtle, or not so subtle, is it?
The series has practically made Jeremy this guy who goes to the Internet whenever he’s having a problem… and let’s face it, that happens to a lot of us. So his searching about resurrections after he’s gone trough one is completely in character for him, and anyone else for that matter. But this video call thing? Has anyone ever said, “Let’s video chat. I call you on Windows Live?” I’ve never heard that. It’s always Skype — and Microsoft just recently bought them! I mean, really. Heck, even ooVoo gets its named dropped much more frequently.

I also love how both of their desktops are exactly alike and they each have only one icon it: Windows Live Messenger. It’s not enough that it’s pinned to their taskbar. I also like that they used full names for their Windows Live display name. No sarcasm there, I like that. I hate it when people have some weird pseudonym I can’t decipher. Also, it looks like Jeremy’s using Internet Explorer 9 (unlike the IE 7 on Gossip Girl from the last NSSPP post). Kudos, Diaries team!

But as to its subtleties, I think I’d give the Bing thing a completely honest A. As I mentioned, this really is a show where the Internet and Bing searches are everyone’s friend. The video call thing did go a bit far for me… but there was no mention of it. If you didn’t know what Windows Live Messenger is, then you would have never known that it was even product placement. You probably thought it was some generic video chat thingamabob that the graphics team designed because they couldn’t get the rights to Skype. And you’d be wrong. For that, I think it’s got to be a solid B, right? (Then again, isn’t the point to advertise your product? This is a pickle.)

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Not so subtle product placement: WP7 on ‘Castle,’ Bing on ‘Gossip Girl’

By
Michael Collado
– May 4, 2011

This has been a post that I’ve wanted to do for quite some time — well, not this specific post, but recurring posts about the (not so) subtle product placement on television shows each week. The first of which started more than a year ago when Zunited reported about Bing being on The Vampire Diaries. Besides, it also combines two of my favorite loves: tech and TV. (And by all means, if you know of any recent product placement too hard to ignore, write it below. And before you read: if you’re not up to date with the TV shows listed do not read because spoiler alert… nothing major, just if you don’t like even a minor spoiler, stay away.) Both of the below episodes aired on Monday, May 2nd, at 10pm on ABC and 9pm on The CW E/PT, respectively.

Windows Phone 7 on Castle

Waiter-slash: Actress. Violet Young's a starving artist. In trouble.

The setup:
In the latest episode of Castle, “To Love and Die In L.A.,” a murder close to Beckett’s heart sends Castle and her from New York to Tinseltown — where everyone is a starving artist and a waiter-slash-something. The duo finds that their victim, murdered on the other side of the country, has been living out of Gene Simmons’ (yes that Gene Simmons) guesthouse and was born anew trying to help those in need (emotionally). His most recent beneficiary was “a girl… very beautiful, stunning” who “dropped off a headshot.” Turns out that headshot belongs to fictional “smokin’ hot,” as quoted by Castle, actress Violet Young, whose only movie role is (what we hope isn’t fictional) Slumber Party Zombie.

Where the product placement comes in:
Castle gears up his handy dandy Windows Phone 7 device, looks like a Samsung Focus if you asked us, to queue up Slumber Party Zombie on Netflix.

And we really can’t blame the guy. But, as you may or may not know, since there can only be a maximum of two live tiles per row and seven or eight show up without scrolling: either this happens to Castle a lot (meaning he learns about beautiful women in movies) or he’s just a really big Netflix junkie. Even I have my Netflix app at the very last page of my iPhone. The shot of the phone goes on for about two to three seconds; Castle presses on the app and the little door transition takes place finally allowing the red background and Netflix logo to take up the entire screen. But seriously, Castle, check your texts, buddy! Clear the email inbox, while you’re at it.

How subtle, or not so subtle, is it?
I suppose I can’t really give it a grade but can describe it as a viewer. Since the plot involved an actress who was, in what I’m assuming from the title, in a Grade… Z film — and since Netflix is ridden with terrible movies like that — it actually seems quite natural to use the Netflix gag in this situation. It also helps that the dialogue was more about queueing something up on Netflix rather than the use of the actual phone, in fact no where was the phone actually mentioned. Though, you get the sense that the same thing could have been done without showing the close up shot of the phone. And thus, subtlety is lost. But hey, it looks cool. (Will people know what it is without them explicitly saying it’s WP7? Or perhaps Nathan Fillion actually uses a Samsung Focus! Yeah, probably not. This photo and the fact that he’s always tweeting from Twitter for iPhone says otherwise. Also, it’s apparently 12:34pm in Castle time.) And the fact that they have a picture of the fictional Castle family helps.

Bing on Gossip Girl

The setup:
Dan recently kissed his ex-girlfriend Serena’s best friend (soon to be ex-best friend, actually) and found out that he has feelings for her. But the best friend, Blair, doesn’t have feelings for him, only for her ex-boyfriend and true love, Chuck, but regardless is now going out with some prince from France she met the previous summer when she vacated in Paris. It’s all very lifelike. Because of all of this, Dan isn’t exactly in the place to get into a relationship at the moment. Enter Charlie, Serena’s cousin who comes from the countryside of Florida and has never played the Upper East Side game. Regardless of how hot Carlie is and how much she wants to hook up with Dan (and how much of a “spaz in a good way” she is), he’s still not into it. He starts to suspect she has feelings for him when she kisses him on the cheek. Perhaps it’s because I’m Hispanic, but that’s not actually an indication of anything… especially not in Miami. It’s a way people say goodbye, but whatever, she actually is into him as I mentioned. So when he comes, in the latest episode “The Princess and the Frog,” over to her aunt’s house (where she’s staying while she visits New York) and she’s looking for a good place that sells pierogies, which are like Polish empanadas or turnovers or dumplings that he’s “always talking about,” he begins to think she’s driving this crush into full throttle.

Where the product placement comes in:
When she googles—ahem—searches for a place that sells these dumpling things, she actually uses Bing, on Windows 7, while using Internet Explorer (what frankly looks like IE 7) that also has a Bing Bar on it, to find a bakery that sells these things.

How subtle, or not subtle, is it?

Ahem: I said I got it on Bing. BING. DID YOU HEAR? BING!

If I could give grades out, it would be much lower on the scale (but would get an A++ on the blunt scale!). Not only does Bing show up for two seconds with the shot above, but the whole beginning of the scene is somewhat focused on what she finds on the computer. And whenever a shot is thrown back to Charlie, what’s on the computer is still in plain view. And she absolutely addresses it by saying: “What are you doing today? Because I was thinking about trying those pierogies that you’re always talking about. And according… to Bing… there’s a really great place in Queens.” You think those ellipses are just there to emphasize to you? No. She actually says it like that. Sadly, we wouldn’t find it that blunt if she were using Google, now would we?

And don’t think we didn’t notice the “only-exists-in-fiction”ally branded Microsoft laptop that she used, either. Besides, the first screenshot showed it was a Lenovo. I mean, really!

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