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From Ars:Google may be the de facto leader in search today, but will its lead last forever? With services like Mahalo and Cuil gaining attention and Microsoft willing to pour continued billions into its quest for online dominance, Google's rivals are legion, and they're hungry, but that doesn't mean the Big G needs to elevate its corporate blood pressure; Google's dominance is assured far into the future. read more | digg story

A Windows Home Server is a simple box that lies at the center of your home network. The Server works without interaction (it doesn ’t run programs like typical operating systems, doesn’t even have a monitor port), simplifying some very complex tasks among all the computers in your home. read more  |  digg story

In early December, Microsoft showed off the Lego Mindstorms NXT "tribot," a toy robot kit with assembly required. The toy works with Microsoft's Robotic Studio software, so owners can program their tribot via the PC, then control its actions wirelessly with a device like the Xbox controller. The NXT has a 32-bit microprocessor, three motors with built-in rotation sensors, and sound sensors that react to sound commands.

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all in a battle to get their product in your living room. Slice it how you may, there will be one definite winner in the next-gen marketplace; that winner is IBM, which designed and makes the microprocessors for all three units. Regardless of which console, IBM will be getting a cut of the profits. Read on... read more  |  digg story

According to APC magazine, every new Windows Vista computer will be given its own domain name to access files remotely. There is a catch though: to use it one must be using IPv6. Is the push for Vista also going to be the push finally to switch everything from IPv4 to IPv6?"Microsoft, meanwhile, is trying to convince businesses to adopt both Vista and Office 2007 at once. An analyst is quoted: 'In all likelihood, enterprises will tie deployment of both Vista and Office 2007 with a hardware upgrade cycle.' His reasoning is that it will be easier for companies to handle one disruption to IT systems than two. Or three. read more  |  digg story

The days of purely desktop-based applications are clearly numbered, but so are the days of exclusively web-based apps... read more  |  digg story

Microsoft is about to shut down its MSN Music Store and redirect customers to the new Zune Marketplace. Microsoft has let down all the hardware vendors that support Microsoft's Plays For Sure as media from the Marketplace will only play on 1 device: the Zune. read more  |  digg story

Microsoft plans to file more than 50 lawsuits worldwide against online merchants who allegedly peddle counterfeit software on popular auction sites, the software giant said Monday. read more  |  digg story

A hacker who as a teen cracked the encryption on DVDs has found a way to unlock the code that prevents iPod users from playing songs from download music stores other than Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes, his company said on Tuesday. Jon Lech Johansen, a 22-year-old Norway native who lives in San Francisco, cracked Apple's FairPlay copy-protection technology, said Monique Farantzos, managing director at DoubleTwist, the company that plans to license the code to businesses. 'What he did was basically reverse-engineer FairPlay,' she said. 'This allows other companies to offer content for the iPod.' At the moment, Apple aims to keep music bought from its iTunes online music store only available for Apple products, while songs bought from other online stores typically do not work on iPods. But Johansen's technology could help rivals sell competing products that play music from iTunes and offer songs for download that work on iPods as they seek to take a bite out of ...

Microsoft Corp. today announced that its Sender ID Framework specification for e-mail authentication is now available under the company's Open Specification Promise (OSP) , an irrevocable promise to every individual in the world that they can make use of the covered Microsoft® technology easily and for free. This is another step forward in the company's commitment to delivering interoperability by design. Microsoft is committed to working with the IT industry to help protect users and businesses from the blight of online threats. Sender ID, the leading e-mail authentication protocol, aims to help stop the spread of spam, phishing scams, malware and other online exploits in e-mail by helping address domain spoofing, a tactic used in over 95 percent of all exploits where the name in the "To:" line of the e-mail is forged.* Approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as an experimental Request for Comment (RFC) this past April, Sender ID gives customers greate...

It's dress-down Friday at Sunbelt Software's Clearwater, Fla., headquarters. In a bland cubicle on the 12th floor, Eric Sites stares at the screen of a "dirty box," a Microsoft Windows machine infected with the self-replicating Wootbot network worm. Within seconds, there is a significant spike in CPU usage as the infected computer starts scanning the network, looking for vulnerable hosts. In a cubicle across the hall, Patrick Jordan's unpatched test machine is hit by the worm, prompting a chuckle from the veteran spyware researcher. Almost simultaneously, the contaminated machine connects to an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server and joins a channel to receive commands, which resemble strings of gibberish, from an unknown attacker. "Welcome to the world of botnets," said Sites, vice president of research and development at Sunbelt, a company that sells anti-spam and anti-spyware software. "Basically, this machine is now owned by a criminal. It's no...

For more than two decades, Microsoft’s software and Intel’s processors were so wedded that the pairing came to be known as Wintel. But as that computing era wanes, Microsoft is turning to a new source of chip design: its own labs. The design effort will initially be split between research labs at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash., and its Silicon Valley campus here. Tentatively named the Computer Architecture Group, the project underscores sweeping changes in the industry. One reason for the effort is that Microsoft needs to begin thinking about the next-generation design of its Xbox game console, said Charles P. Thacker, a veteran engineer and Microsoft engineer who will head the Silicon Valley group. Voice recognition may also be an area where the research could play a significant role. “Voice is big,” Mr. Thacker said. “You can throw as much technology at it as you want to.” Microsoft is exploring hardware design now in part because of a new set of tools that will make it...

Sony has been showing off the following chart, which supposedly shows a price comparison between the PS3 and Xbox 360. Microsoft seems to have had enough. read more  |  digg story

"The quest is to essentially build a surrogate memory. Something that's as good as my own memory, that I can use it as a supplement, and will remember everything that I should have remembered, that came to my ears, eyes, whatever," Microsoft's Bell said of his experiment. read more  |  digg story

The Child Exploitation Tracking System is a database to help investigators sift through suspect Web site and electronic communications. Several other European nations are expected to adopt the system in the coming months. Microsoft has spent $7 million developing the system and is giving it free-of-charge to governments. read more  |  digg story

Microsoft has agreed to provide code so that software companies can provide their own security add-ons to its Vista operating system. Rivals had previously complained they were locked out from the security system for Vista. Experts warned the lack of access increased the risk of malicious hacks and viruses. "While we are encouraged by their statements and are hopeful their actions will indeed lead to customers being allowed to use whatever security solutions they would like on the Vista operating system, the operative question is exactly when will the final detailed information be made available to security providers?" read a statement from Symantec. It is concerned that, with Vista due to ship to businesses within the next few weeks, time is running out. Earlier this month, security firm McAfee took out a full-page advert in the Financial Times to alert readers to its worries about the way Microsoft was handling the release of its new operating system.

Apple Computer warned on Tuesday that some of its latest iPods have shipped with a Windows virus. The company said that a small number of video iPods made after Sept. 12 included the RavMonE virus . It said it has seen fewer than 25 reports of the problem, which it said does not affect other models of the media player, nor does it affect Macs. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company apologized on its Web site for the problem, but also used the opportunity to jab at Microsoft, its operating system rival. "As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," Apple said on its site.

A recent interview between Apple founding CEO Steven Jobs and Newsweek editor Steven Levy was most instructive with respect to the differences between Apple and Microsoft when it comes to fighting piracy of music and software. To be clear on what we are talking about, both Microsoft and Apple have been wildly successful in creating dominant - in Microsoft's case monopolistic - market shares in their respective areas of desktop software and portable music players. In the case of both companies they have had to contend with the thorny issue of piracy. In many ways, their successful approach has been exactly the same - to turn a blind eye to it. The Jobs interview, which marked the fifth anniversary of iPod, revealed that the Apple co-founder claims that if you charge the market a price it will accept for music, users will forgo illegal downloads and pay iTunes to download tracks. Jobs is indeed correct when he says this strategy has worked - iTunes has had something like 1.5 billion...

The October issue of Wired magazine takes a look at Ray Ozzie's work with Microsoft. To hear the article describe it, he's rebuilding the company from the ground up . A 70,000-employee company is quietly changing its ways by thinking of software as deliverable services that perhaps could be rented on a monthly subscription basis. There are, of course, two major reasons for Ozzie's ascendancy at Microsoft: Gates and Ballmer. Ozzie is one of the few technologists anywhere whom they respect; they'd been trying for years to get him to join the company. Now he's carrying their hopes for the future, and it's a heavy load. Ozzie needs to move Microsoft from selling software in a box to selling lightning-fast, powerful online applications ranging from gaming to spreadsheets. The risks are enormous. The mission is to radically alter the way the company sells its most profitable software and to pursue the great unknown of so-called Web services - trading an old cash cow ...

In response to Google Apps for Your Domain, Microsoft is also planning to release free web-based business software. The software will be ad-supported, but a paid, ad-free version will also be available. From the article: 'Revenue from software licenses for Office and the Windows operating system accounts for a bulk of Microsoft revenues. The challenge for Microsoft will be to make sure a free or, possibly, a subscription-supported version of Works won't hurt sales of its dominant Office software, which accounted for a quarter of the company's $44 billion in sales last year.' Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?