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AFP, July, 2010

WASHINGTON (AFP) Microsoft on Tuesday denounced Yahoo! Japan’s Internet search alliance with Google, saying it would give Google near-total control over the third-largest market for search queries in the world.

“Google’s plan would cement its position as essentially the sole provider of search results in Japan for years to come,” Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said in a blog post.

“The proposed deal will eliminate search competition in Japan — in paid advertising and natural search results,” Heiner said.

The agreement calls for Yahoo! Japan to switch to Google’s search engine this year from the Yahoo! Inc. technology currently used and deploy Google’s online advertising and distribution system.

Despite its namesake, the…

Caf des Amis

0 Comments | Pittsburgh City Paper, Apr 1-Apr 8, 2009 | by Bamberg, Angelique, | Roth, Jason

Caf des Amis

HOW TO DESCRIBE our latest restaurant outing? Well, remember that friend who spent a year (or a semester, or even a week) in France and came back smoking Gauloises and sprinkling her speech with little Frenchisms, kissing you hello on both cheeks and waxing nostalgic about the Parisian caf lifestyle? Let’s just say that after one dinner at Caf des Amis, we became that person.

Located on a brick-paved alley that meets Sewickley’s main drag at an eccentric – even Gallic – angle, Caf des Amis is a striking visual simulacrum of a real French caf, with rustic wooden tables, chalkboard menus, and display cases full of sophisticated salads, sandwiches and desserts. Most importantly, it isn’t run by locals seeking to recreate their junior year abroad; it’s run by agenuine Frenchman, Eric Assandri, with chef Rudolf Dietz who, despite his Germanic name, banters in French with Assandri. Their relaxed yet serious demeanor sets the vibe for the restaurant.

Until recently, the caf was primarily a bakery that served breakfast and lunch, as well as a base of operations for catering. But now that it is offering dinners on Friday and Saturday nights, menu offerings have grown slightly more ambitious in service of the relaxed, multi-hour meal that is France’s greatest export.

Or perhaps France’s greatest achievement is really the food. After all, while modern American cooking owes little to the stuffy, painstaking haute cuisine of France’s classical kitchens, its wellspring was in the simpler French traditions of fresh foods treated with great respect. Thus, when Chef Dietz puts slices of bacon in the midst of a brie-andpotato sandwich, he first trims it carefully, so that there’s enough fat to flavor and crisp, but not so much that it dominates its fellows.

This kind of care pervades the menu, with each component of each dish prepared with attention to detail. . But while nothing is slapped together, neither is anything offered with a side of affectation: When Anglique inquired after the missing egg in her salad, Chef Assandri shrugged and said, “I forgot.” (He thoughtfully included one in our to-go container.)

The dinner experience is somewhere between a caf counter and sit-down service; some dishes we got for ourselves from the counter, while others were delivered to our table. In true Continental fashion, the place was bysier when we left at 8:30 in the evening than it had been when we arrived at 6.

Thanks to the cafe’s lunchtime roots, dinner can be anything from croque monsieur, sort of a cross between French toast and grilled cheese with ham, to shepherd’s pie or roulades of beef