Intellectual Ventures, a patent portfolio developer and broker started by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, has filed patent lawsuits against nine tech companies, including Symantec, McAfee and Hynix Semiconductor. Intellectual Ventures filed three patent infringement lawsuits Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, the company announced.
It started with an accidental posting on Microsoft's Dutch website saying Windows 8 was two years away from hitting the market. Then there were a few slides at the recent Microsoft Professional Developers Conference suggesting the next release of the Windows Server OS, which typically arrives just after a desktop edition debuts, was due in 2012. To add to the titillation, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, when interviewed at the Gartner Symposium, said the next version of the Windows desktop would be "Microsoft's riskiest upcoming product."
The next version of Internet Explorer will let users turn on "tracking protection," a new mechanism that will block specified third-party sites from tracking users, Microsoft said.
The announcement comes just as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has proposed that consumers be allowed to subscribe to a "do not track" system that is similar to the "do not call" lists that consumers join in order to block telemarketers.
Jailbreaking is a constant problem for companies such as Apple and Microsoft, but the latter has shown there's a new way to deal with the problem.
Microsoft looks to have struck a deal with the creators of the jailbreaking tool ChevronWP7 (which allows users to run homemade software and games on their Windows Phone), involving the agreement that the developers of the programme will stop distributing the programme in exchange for helping the PC giant with homebrew development.
Microsoft recently announced the decision to drop the Drive Extender feature found in several of its server products, including Windows Home Server (code-named "Vail"), Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Server Essentials.
Kinect, Microsoft's new hands-free gaming accessory for the Xbox, has -- not unexpectedly -- attracted a crowd of hard-core technology geeks.
But of the million (and counting) Kinects sold since they hit shelves Nov. 4, some have been bought by geeks with intentions beyond mere gaming. There are hackers, programmers and experimenters who have gotten the motion-sensing video game controller to do things it was, well, not really meant to do.
It looks like custom ROMs right now won’t be a possibility on devices launching with Windows Phone 7 until someone can figure out Microsoft’s PVK system. PVK, which is a security key that ties the Windows Phone 7 operating system to the hardware or smartphone. If the PVK cannot be found, certain parts of the operating system can still work, but some components, such as Xbox, Marketplace (the app store for Windows Phone 7), Windows Live, Zune, and other Microsoft services may not work.
It’s kind of an old joke of the high technology era that if you can’t figure out your new computer, wi-fi router, TiVo or other confounding product, ask a kid for help. One of my nephews, at age five, took the controls for Grand Theft Auto out of my hands because I was doing it wrong.
Reports have been coming out left and right about new and interesting ways Microsoft’s new Kinect has been “hacked” and made to do amazing things.
U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp.'s branch in Taiwan on Wednesday warned users of its local online communication software MSN Messenger that hackers were attempting to steal money via the program.
Microsoft Taiwan said it had received reports of such cases since early last month, but according to local media reports, similar incidents had occurred earlier this year.
