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How 8 Pixels Cost Microsoft Millions
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:43 PM
from the debug-twice-distribute-once dept.
from the debug-twice-distribute-once dept.
NubKnacker writes "Economic Times, one of India's biggest business daily's is carrying a story about how a small colouring mistake forced Microsoft to recall 200,000 copies of Windows 95. This wouldn't be the first time that has happened to Microsoft. From the article, "Microsoft has also managed to upset women and entire countries. A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation." Ouch!"
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How 8 Pixels Cost Microsoft Millions
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Not the first time... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Even if nobody in Detroit knew enough rudimentary Spanish to notice the coincidence, the Nova could not have brought to market in Mexico and/or South America without the involvement of numerous Spanish speakers engaged to translate user manuals, prepare advertising and promotional materials, communicate with the network of Chevrolet dealers in the target countries, etc.
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.trademarkguy.com/blog/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 10 2004, @03:58PM)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Snopes has been wrong about things in the past. Chances are there are things on their site that are wrong right now. Snopes will get things wrong in the future. People act like Snopes is the infallible word of god or something but it is not.
Re:Not the first time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is one example:
http://shock-awe.info/archive/000858.php/ [shock-awe.info]
Granted it is not the most coherant example, but I do not have the time right now to go digging through google looking for examples of snopes being wrong.
I am not sure how scopes could be right or wrong
If they say that something is False when in reality that thing is True then snopes is wrong.
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.writetothem.com/)
Have you actually read the Hutton report [the-hutton...iry.org.uk]. Aside from the fact that it is a complete whitewash by a member of the establishment hand-picked by Tony Blair to clear him of any wrongdoing, it doesn't actually accuse the BBC of making anything up. At the end of the entire episode, I still have enormous amount of respect for the BBC and their journalists, and no respect whatsoever for the government or their lackey Hutton.
Then again, I suppose the BBC did make up the spaghetti tree hoax [museumofhoaxes.com]
Re:Not the first time... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://jayandcarissa.com/)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Kinda... it's called the "Wego" in most other countries, but once it got to the US, they discovered that they could only fit one average sized American into the car. They wanted to call it the "Igo" but immediately got threatened by Apple, so ended up calling it the "Yugo".
Ok, so "i{blank}" didn't exist back then... sue me!
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.cgore.com/)
Take a close look at your keyboard.
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ferion.net/ | Last Journal: Monday May 06 2002, @02:16AM)
Um, no it doesn't. That's like saying that somebody's love of Reese's Peanut Butter cups explains their fondness for Disney's version of Peter Pan.
What a stupid comment to twist into an MS bash. Unless you're Indiana Jones, you qualify right along with his employees in his comment.
Re:Cost millions?? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://sheelab.homecreatures.com/)
Just stop plugging this stuff already. As somebody who has lived in Spain for the last 14 years I can tell you with 100% certainty that "nova" and "no va" are pronounced differently, and nobody says "no va" referring to cars here anyway.
Parent is not true, MOD DOWN (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.ferion.net/ | Last Journal: Monday May 06 2002, @02:16AM)
"no va" != "nova"
I mean, if I sell a work "of art", nobody's gonna refuse to buy it because it sounds like "o fart".
Re:Not the first time... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.sumutia.com)
Sorry, but this may sound patronizing. India and Pakistan have squabbled and fought minor wars over Kashmir for half a century. Almost every single time India and Pakistan make the news - which they do regularly, here in Europe - Kashmir gets a mention, with India accusing Pakistan of funding, training and arming insurgents in Kashmir, Pakistan denying vehemently.
Since India and Pakistan are now nuclear powers, this gets attention in countries that know what being bombed feels like, i.e. every non-American country. Kashmir may yet spark the next nuclear holocaust.
Dupe (Score:3, Informative)
Dupe... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://douglas.mayle.org/ | Last Journal: Monday March 05 2007, @12:01PM)
Come one, come all, for the greatest dupe [slashdot.org] on earth... It's not the exact same article, but it's the exact same source materiel...
If I was low on Karma, I'm sure I could Karma Whore and just copy high scoring posts from the previous article...
Re:Dupe... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dupe... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://nizo.deviantart.com/gallery/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 17, @11:02PM)
Actually a TRUPE..Slashdot pulled an earlier one (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~GillBates0 | Last Journal: Tuesday July 10, @04:36PM)
I managed to save a screenshot (well, actually HTML) of the pulled story, because everything (including my comment) disappeared. Check out my Journal entry [slashdot.org] about it. If you try replying to my comment in the Journal entry, you get a message like:
Submitted Comment
There was an unknown error in the submission
The story was actually on ZDNet days ago... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://dave.oc7.org/)
Looks like everyone else is a week behind the times...
-- Dave
coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
Is this a dupe? (Score:4, Funny)
Anyone speak Latin? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday November 09, @05:49PM)
I only speak english... could someone explain the problem with that translation?
Re:Anyone speak Latin? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Anyone speak Latin? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 27, @01:43PM)
And the typical Australian is still amused that somebody would actually name their daughter 'Sheila.'
Not quite (Score:5, Funny)
(http://dvd-hq.info/)
One of the most common ones is "rapariga" (feminin of "rapaz", which means "lad"). In Brazil, "rapariga" is usually used to describe a prostitute (although technically it means the same - a young woman).
A more interesting word is "puto". In standard Portuguese, it means "kid" (boy). In brazilian Portuguese it means "male prostitute". So, as you can imagine, when a portuguese writer (Altino Tojal) published a book called "Os putos" ("The kids"), in the 1970s, the brazilians thought Portugal (then a religious dictatorship!) was a really open society...
The feminin ("puta") does mean the same in both dialects.
Another interesting word is "Durex". In Brazil, it means sticky tape. In Portugal everyone knows it as a condom brand (although Control is more popular, and if you've used both, you know why). A couple of years ago, a (female) brazilian friend of mine came to Portugal, and needed some tape. She went to an office supply store and asked for "some Durex". The woman behind the counter looked at her as if she was some sort of nut and told her "well, if you want Durex, go to the chemist's!". She found this rather odd, but did as she was told. She walked into a pharmacy and asked for Durex. The chemist said "what type?", and she said "well, any type will do, I really need it quickly". The chamist said "well, what amount do you want?". Se held her hands about 70 cm apart and said "well, a piece about this big".
True story.
RMN
~~~
Re:Reminds me of when I moved from England (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.llabmik.net/ | Last Journal: Monday March 21 2005, @04:31PM)
I guess either way, it's probably good advice. But a little shocking coming from Grandma.
Re:Anyone speak Latin? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.encyclope...i_herd_u_liek_mudkip)
of course they don't. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://shockandblog.com/blog)
Re:Anyone speak Latin? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Anyone speak Latin? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://flaggers.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday July 17 2005, @12:02PM)
My friend Zaulo was here this weekend helping me re-arrange my office, and we were discussing this exact story (thankfully this is a dupe, so I've had a chance to get some Local Color betweent the first and second postings!)
File this under "the Spanish-speaking world is big. Really Big.". In Locale esMX macho and hembra are commonly used for animals, meaning male and female respectively.
When applied to humans, they take on the connotation of "super manly" (a usage that is common in US English) and "extremely feminine and beautiful" ... (a usage that seems not to have found its way to the US).
In some Latin American coutnries, the usage ranges from decidedly negative to merely curious.
There was a similar story that made the headlines for a while, that some beer company had a series of commercials where all of the characters were referring to each other as "güey" (pronounced "way", like "do you know the way to san jose?") , which in esMX is the closest translation possible to "dude." In some other locales it is much more rude.
The word is, in fact, a variant on the word buey (Ox) which is a very crude insult, likely leading to physical assault.
How 8 duped posts cost Slashdot its integrity (Score:5, Funny)
And now for a naked dwarf chasing a chihuahua...
Not all small coloring mistakes were recalled (Score:5, Funny)
I seem to recall getting a lot of blue from Win95, and yet nobody at Microsoft returned by calls when I told them I wanted a refund for their faulty OS...
Re:Not all small coloring mistakes were recalled (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/rosonowski)
Yes, w95 did blue screen.
constantly
No game (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty bad when even the Slashdot crew knows thats not too smooth...
whatever... (Score:3, Interesting)
its not microsofts fault that people in central america, use an OS destined for ANOTHER COUNTRY, and their words overlap into profanity.
anything to bash MS, eh slashdot?
Re:whatever... (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday August 23 2004, @03:58PM)
You fail.
How 8 pixels caused Deja Vu (Score:3, Funny)
It's Groundhog Day!
Who is Daddypants? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://phroggy.com/)
8^2 pixels (Score:4, Informative)
It's a tradeoff... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.rarose.com/)
OS/2 2.0 caught a lot of crap from people because the icons and graphics were basic, simple with muted colors. What people didn't know was that those icons had been vetted through legal review, special-needs review (i.e. all the various forms of color blindness), internationalization (like pointing with the index finger is OK here, but bad in europe, etc).
By the time you get through all those reviews, most of "chimp attract" is gone.... so where along the continuium do you want your product to be?
Should've just done it like that "nicotina" movie (Score:3, Funny)
irony (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps it should have been from Slashdot's "post-twice-spellcheck-zero-times dept."
Oh come on. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://baxpace.com/)
I like the way the article neglets to inform us which part of Windows 95 was to blame, or which game(s) were causing offence. Perhaps things would suddenly become understandable and cause the article to lose some of it's bashing impact had these details been presented.
The only map I can think of in '95 was the for setting the timezone, and as I remember all of that map was the same shade of green. It does sound a bit bitchy to make kashmir a special exception, so I'd like to know what part of Win95 this map was actually in, and whether other parts of the world had special shades of green too.
Beware of the source (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.caldera.com/?sco=litigious+bastards)
dupe (Score:5, Funny)
Or, for slashdot editors:
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Can we have a forumcode that says "just go back and read my comments from the last 2 times this story was posted"?
Oh, come on, this is just silly (Score:3, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 05 2006, @10:36PM)
I mean, what kind of culture actually uses the terms "woman" and "bitch" interchangeably?
Oh, wait...
Correct gender for all (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Sunday January 11 2004, @03:55AM)
Maybe this is a dupe too...but (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not trying to make this a serious conservative website about tech news and opinions, but a lot of us are open source advocates and the community is represented somewhat on this website. This site has a responsibility to the OSS community and while this Borg icon may have seemed funny years ago, I think the joke is on us now.
And while people may say how microsoft bashes linux and opensource openly, that doesn't mean we should in turn bash them with an icon. All this anti-microsoft does is give credibility to their argument that open source projects are managed and supported by a bunch of geeks in their basements, and not hardworking, intelligent companies.
Or... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I'm from Central America, here's the deal: (Score:4, Informative)
Spanish dialects are extremely variable (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
For example, cojer means "to pick up", but in mexico it means "to have sexual relations with". You can swing by to cojer your friends in most countries, but your Mexican buddies will probably object. (Acutally, I don't don't know if this is true for Northern Mexico, not having been there). There are literally thousands of similar examples -- be very careful asking shop keepers if they have eggs!
Since the language is extremely variable over even short geographic distances, it would be VERY difficult to provide Spanish-Language versions of your software that didn't offend someone.
For the record, I believe the word in question here is "hembra" - which means "female" most places, but can be derogatory in others.
My video game faux-paux (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.fentonia.com/bio/)
The program would rate the player's driving skills on a 1 to 5 scale. In French, the worst performance phrase was "reprendre la école", which means "go back to school". Since the game font did not have a circumflex in it, I put the phrase in as "reprendre la ecole".
The rough translation of this in French is "you're a cunt!".
We had to rev the ROMs and make sure we shipped the bad ones only to the US, England, Germany, and Spain!
Uruguay? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday April 12 2005, @11:12PM)
Microsoft has also seen its unfortunate style of diplomacy have an effect in Korea, Kurdistan, Uruguay and to China--where a cartographical dispute saw Chinese employees hauled in front of the government.
What does my country in south america to make a diplomatic between korea, kurdistand and china, that in a way or another are somewhat close?
Seems to be closer the "WWIII: Microsoft style". A good example where with great power one don't give a shit about the great responsibility.
Re:I don't see the problem with Bitch (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Axe to grind? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bitch? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://users.pandora.be/redx | Last Journal: Sunday March 19 2006, @01:26PM)