Microsoft Tafiti, a Showcase for Silverlight and an Experimental Search Service

Microsoft has just released a new search service, called Tafiti.


From the very beginning should be clarified that Tafiti is more of an example of what Silverlight is capable of rather than a real search engine product.  It is based on the 1.0 RC plug-in of Silverlight and uses the Live Search API, which means that you will get the same results as if you search in MSN or Live.
Tafiti is rich, interactive and provides the user with some very nice features which the ordinary searches lack. As it name implies, Tafiti in Swahili means "do research".

Shelf

The shelf is a space on the screen where you can place search results and label them. The user is allowed to place anything from books to RSS feeds. There is no limit of the items in the shelf. Tests show that the shelf is looking good even with 250 items in it.

Carrousel Bar

It allows you to switch among different types of search results(books, RSS feeds, web, images and news).

Filter

If you want to narrow your search, the filter functionality of Tafiti is doing a wonderful job.

Tree view

I think the tree view is the feature that shows in great details the capabilities of Silverlight. Described in few words, each branch is a different search result. The tree rotates in a 3D perspective and the speed of the rotation can be controlled using the left and right handle. Also the size of the result cloud can be controlled with the slider bellow the tree.
The thing that "bothers" me is whether there is a real 3D simulation or it is a two-and-a-half-D motion. What do you think?

Unique URL

Tafiti supports unique URL functionality. This means that you can share your searches with other people by simply copy-pasting the URL bar of the browser or sending it as an e-mail.

Conclusion

As I said before Tafiti uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search and works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari on Windows XP (SP2), Windows Vista , and Mac OS X. Tafiti is not something revolutionary in the field of search engines. Even if it wants, it cannot replace the good old Google. In one thing I am sure though, applications like Tafiti will continue to push the limits of Silverlight in every possible aspect. Here at Telerik, we are doing our best to squeeze the most out of Silverlight. Our control suite for Silverlight 1.0 is currently in its Release Candidate stage. You can find more about the suite here. Also we are actively working on the development of Silverlight 1.1 control suite.