Microsoft showed off a number of its latest research projects at the Silicon Valley TechFair research fair in Mountain View on April 17.
Among the featured projects — some of which the company had touted previously, others not — were a couple of big data- and analytics-focused ones.
In response to customer outcry, organizations holding off on deploying the Windows 8.1 Update will be able to get security updates for their systems for another three and a half months, as opposed to the 30 days that Microsoft originally promised.
When the Windows 8.1 Update designed to improve the mouse and keyboard experience of Windows 8.1 was initially released last week, Microsoft said that it was a mandatory update. Any future security updates, starting from next month, would require the update to be installed.
Microsoft's demand that Windows 8.1 users install this week's major update was another signal that the company is very serious about forcing customers to adopt its faster release strategy, experts said today.
"Microsoft is going to drag organizations and users into this new world of faster updates kicking and screaming," said Michael Silver of Gartner in an email. "Microsoft wants users to trust it to keep their systems updated. Maybe they figure forcing organizations to deploy [Windows 8.1 Update] will get them used to taking updates and keeping current."
This month's "Patch Tuesday" includes the final round of security fixes Microsoft will issue for Windows XP, potentially leaving millions that continue to use the OS open to attack.
Microsoft this week gave customers a bare-bones peek at the future of Windows, saying that the next iteration after Windows 8.1 Update will restore a Start menu and let users run "Metro" apps on the classic desktop.
The sneak peek was part of the opening day keynote of Build, Microsoft's developer conference, which ran April 2-4 in San Francisco.
A 5-year-old San Diego boy has been commended by Microsoft for his security skills after finding a vulnerability in the company's Xbox games console.
Kristoffer Von Hasssel's parents noticed earlier this year that he was logged into his father's Xbox Live account and playing games he was not supposed to.
Microsoft will announce its rebranding of its "Windows Azure" cloud operating system to "Microsoft Azure," this week, according to a couple of tipsters of mine.
The announcement is expected to happen tomorrow, March 25, and to take effect on April 3, the second day of Microsoft's Build conference in San Francisco, said a couple of individuals who asked not to be identified, but who are familiar with Microsoft's plans.
In its almost daily effort to convince Windows XP die-hards to finally give up their old machines, Microsoft has posted a security advisory about all the terrible things that might happen after it switches off Windows XP support on 8 April.
In a very lengthy post on the Microsoft security blog titled 'Cyber threats to Windows XP and guidance for Small Businesses and Individual Consumers', Tim Rains, director of the Redmond firm's Trustworthy Computing Group, lays out five fearsome threats facing Windows XP users.
Microsoft warned today that attackers are exploiting a previously unknown security hole in Microsoft Word that can be used to foist malicious code if users open a specially crafted text file, or merely preview the message in Microsoft Outlook.
In a notice published today, Microsoft advised:
Earlier this week, an ex-Microsoft employee was charged with the theft of trade secrets in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. Alex Kibkalo allegedly sent code and other intelligence about Microsoft products to an unnamed French blogger.
In the course of tracking down the alleged leaker, Microsoft searched through the blogger's e-mail account -- before involving law enforcement -- according to court documents.
