Microsoft announced the availability of a new Tafiti experimental search front-end based on Silverlight. I tried out the Halo 3 branded system, and it is visually very nice and functionally very smooth.
However, as a search engine front-end, it is currently a failure. I sent the team the following feedback:
Sorry guys, but I have to grade it as a complete failure.
1) You completely fail to operate under a common setting (popup blocker set at medium) in your own browser (IE7)
2) You cannot bypass #1 using a Ctrl-Click
While it looks spiffy, it is useless.
They need to test more usage scenarios.