Microsoft’s new ‘feature’:

The newest feature of Microsoft’s next-generation Vista operating system, due in 2007, attempts to clean up the Web, restoring some of the best principles of graphic design from the pre-Internet era. On April 28 Microsoft and The New York Times Company unveiled a prototype of the Times Reader, a browser-like program that gives New York Times designers the ability to more closely reproduce the newspaper’s distinctive look and feel on a computer screen, regardless of the screen’s size or format.The software takes advantage of WinFX, a completely new system for rendering user-interface graphics that Microsoft is developing for Vista. It’s distinct from the Times’ recently redesigned website, but the Reader nevertheless has many of the features of a Web browser, including hyperlinks, navigation buttons, and a search function. It’s also designed to stockpile content for offline reading and to make it easy to annotate, e-mail, or blog about the stories displayed…

It’s amazing, sometimes, how stupid clever people can be.

Jeff Jarvis has some sharp things to say about this.