Microsoft

Microsoft unveiled its plans to release a free, mobile version of its SQL Server database at a customer event here today. SQL Server Everywhere Edition is scheduled for release in the second half of this year.

The stripped down mobile version of Microsoft's enterprise class SQL Server database software will be free to download and use. Microsoft also said it plans to embed "Everywhere" in mobile devices by making it part of the Windows Mobile services already includes in many PDAs and other portable computers.

When Microsoft Corp. researchers learned recently that a software flaw had been made public and could prompt Internet attacks, the company ordered a team to devote all its time to fixing the flaw and making the repair work with other products.

Microsoft argues that's the approach customers want and expect, but some security experts complained that the software company's traditional method, which could take days or weeks, wouldn't help people fast enough.

Microsoft is moving full steam ahead with a plan to permanently modify the way Internet Explorer renders multimedia content on Web pages, but in what amounts to an admission that the changes could be disruptive, the software maker plans to give Web developers an extra 60 days to continue making preparations. The IE update, which results from a multimillion-dollar patent spat with Eolas Technologies, changes the way the browser handles ActiveX controls and could have a significant impact on how online advertising and streaming media content is delivered over the Internet.

In the heart of potato country, a high-tech boom is taking place.

Technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are planning to build massive data storage centers amid the sagebrush and farm fields of rural central Washington.

The draw appears to be the region's relatively cheap land, inexpensive hydropower and wide-open space, and although neither agreement has been finalized, local officials are hopeful that Grant County will become more than the nation's leading supplier of spuds.

With hackers actively exploiting an unpatched bug in Internet Explorer (IE), and some users unhappy that a fix for the problem may still be two weeks away, Microsoft says it is looking at ways of providing more rapid security updates.

Hackers began circulating code that exploited this newest IE vulnerability late last week, and to date it has been used on several hundred maliciously encoded Web sites, according to security vendor Websense.

Set to ship at the end of the year, Windows Vista will be Microsoft's first major operating system release since it introduced Windows XP in 2001.

Well now it is pretty much official for everyone that either didn't want to believe or those that needed to see it to believe it. A video of a the Xbox 360 firmware hack announced a few days ago surfaced earlier today with the following message (emphasis ours):

SOFTWARE FIRM Microsoft filed suit last week against the Airon Corporation, Levon Gasparian, a Massachusetts resident individually and against his "meretricious community", alleging that it, he, she and 20 John Does ("they"), were breaching a number of contracts and misrepresenting themselves by using its trademarks.

In a filing in a Washington state district court, Microsoft alleged that the defendants had set up a web site and exploited "users' concern for the safety of their computers to sell their goods and services in a deceptive manner".

After Sony announced on Tuesday that the Playstation 3 won't launch until November, the Xbox 360 is in a better position to become the top gaming console, says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Word is out on the street that a flaw in the Xbox 360 DVD firmware may allow a hacker to install his own custom firmware in there unchecked, and as such gain full control of what the DVD will or will not accept. In practice, this would mean that the drive could gain the capability to boot backups of original game DVD’s by flashing a self-built firmware in there which ignores the mandatory disc signing. The bold claims are being made by user TheSpecialist, who has been credited with a firmware hack before, which actually went unreleased because of several very good reasons.