MS edutainment CD in milkshake mix-up

Update Worrying signs are emerging that Microsoft's factual products are becoming as reliably bug-prone as the company's systems and applications software. These errors can't be blamed on local translators either, as they pop up in English language versions.

Have a look for yourself.

There's an intriguing one here, which is bound to cause great excitement among folk who like to believe that Martians built their own pyramids, or that the lost civilisation of Atlantis lies underneath the ice of Antarctica.*

Far more seriously, this bug could cause mayhem if relied on for interactive advice at lounge parties. Don't dally with that blender now...

Thanks to reader Jonathan de Boyne Pollard who sent us this one and observes: "It sounds as though the writers of Microsoft Virtual Globe have experience of flying with EasyJet."

But our favourite remains this one however, which emerged earlier this year, and it's one you have might seen already. No apologies for the repost, though, as it has all the classic hallmarks of the edutainment CD-ROM knocked-up on the cheap: the original, brain-in-jar mistake, followed by the masterfully understated acknowledgement, the jibbering keyword clues: "multi multi-media media mm world atlas evg", and the "leave it to us, we'll fix it... somehow" pay-off. As NTK pointed out at the time when it spotted this, what's Microsoft going to do to fix it? Turn the world around, Superman style? ®

*Register Bootnote No.H0B60D2 This suggestion, based on the fact that we haven't found Atlantis anywhere else yet, was strengthened by medieval Turkish maps that showed an ice free Antarctica, and by a novel theory that parts of earth's crust can skim about a great speed over a short period of geological time. Albert Einstein himself spent much of his last decade trying to get this idea examined seriously, but without success. If you like this, you ought to be here. [That's it. We're recalling you from California - Ed]