Microsoft is quietly testing some experimental search technology at a beta site called Tafiti (Swahili for "do research").

Tafiti's interface, which mimics a filing cabinet and loose-leaf paper, is a slick showcase for Microsoft's new Silverlight technology - a tool, still in beta, for embedding multimedia in websites, that will compete against Adobe's Flash.

And while search results themselves are the same as you'll get from Microsoft's primary search vehicle, Live, there's a nifty little twist: you can drag-and-drop selected search results onto a series of "shelves" on the right. The only slightly clunky bit is that you then have to manually text label each of your items on the shelf. Still, nice.

Of course, this week I can't sign off without mentioning the Yahoo!xtra Bubble mess. To wit, check out our Hot Products blog, where Jan Birkeland will shortly post a report from Xtra's midday official launch of the new service (originally envisaged as a happy-happy joy-joy event when invites were first sent last week, complete with cutesy plastic bottles of bubble-blowing mixture. After the toxic times since Saturday, Jan reports the first words of the launch were "We're sorry").