Tiger, Longhorn search for desktop answers

[Mac Reporter]

Microsoft and Apple Computer are searching for the same thing with their next operating systems: a better way to find stuff on an increasingly cluttered hard drive.

The software makers have made scouring for information a top priority. In large part, that's because hard drives have continued to grow, stretching the limits of old ways of accessing information, such as looking through folders.

Apple promises that Tiger, the next version of Mac OS X, will be able to track down information that can't be found by hand using a search engine feature called "Spotlight." The technology, shown off at Apple's developer conference this week, is planned for the first half of next year. Microsoft, too, is planning to make search tools a centerpiece of Longhorn, its next update of Windows, which is not expected to debut until 2006 at the earliest.

Read more at CNET News.com.