NYT: "The new version of Bing is the biggest overhaul to the search engine since Microsoft introduced it three years ago. It is the result of a continual conversation at the company about how to make Bing a more effective competitor to that other search engine — Google — and try to stem its considerable losses. In its last fiscal year, Microsoft reported operating losses from its online services division of $2.6 billion."

Ben Kersey: "Microsoft and AOL ...signed a deal that would see MSFT pick up 800 of AOL’s patents for around $1 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close at the end of 2012, with Microsoft being able to leverage AOL’s remaining 300 patents under a non-exclusive license. As it turns out, there was an undisclosed term to the deal, and AllThingsD reports that Microsoft has picked up part of Netscape."

News release: "Today at the RSA Conference 2012, Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, shared his vision for the road ahead as society and computing intersect in an increasingly interconnected world. In a new paper, Trustworthy Computing (TwC) Next, Charney encouraged industry and governments to develop more effective privacy principles focused on use and accountability, improve end-to-end reliability of cloud services through increased fault modeling and standards efforts, and adopt more holistic security strategies including improved hygiene and greater attention to detection and containment."

Via LLRX.com: Help with SharePoint is on the way in The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee© Animated Series

Follow up to Third-Party Cookie Blocking in Safari Bypassed For Millions of Users, this posting via the Windows Internet Explorer Engineering Team Blog: "When the IE team heard that Google had bypassed user privacy settings on Safari, we asked ourselves a simple question: is Google circumventing the privacy preferences of Internet Explorer users too? We’ve discovered the answer is yes: Google is employing similar methods to get around the default privacy protections in IE and track IE users with cookies. Below we spell out in more detail what we’ve discovered, as well as recommendations to IE users on how to protect their privacy from Google with the use of IE9's Tracking Protection feature. We’ve also contacted Google and asked them to commit to honoring P3P privacy settings for users of all browsers. We’ve found that Google bypasses the P3P Privacy Protection feature in IE. The result is similar to the recent reports of Google’s circumvention of privacy protections in Apple’s Safari Web browser, even though the actual bypass mechanism Google uses is different. Internet Explorer 9 has an additional privacy feature called Tracking Protection which is not susceptible to this type of bypass. Microsoft recommends that customers who want to protect themselves from Google’s bypass of P3P Privacy Protection use Internet Explorer 9 and click here to add a Tracking Protection List. Customers can find additional lists and information on this page."

"The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain appeared in the Nov. 30 edition of the Technology Review - The PC is dead. Rising numbers of mobile, lightweight, cloud-centric devices don't merely represent a change in form factor. Rather, we're seeing an unprecedented shift of power from end users and software developers on the one hand, to operating system vendors on the other—and even those who keep their PCs are being swept along. This is a little for the better, and much for the worse. The transformation is one from product to service. The platforms we used to purchase every few years—like operating systems—have become ongoing relationships with vendors, both for end users and software developers. I wrote about this impending shift, driven by a desire for better security and more convenience, in my 2008 book The Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It."

Microsoft TechNet: "Helping tackle some of the most urgent global challenges is firmly on the agenda for Microsoft Research (MSR) – applying our experience, our depth and breadth of expertise, our partnerships and the power of software to tackle these challenges. In the case of searching for a vaccine for HIV, all of this comes in to play as we’re applying high-powered computation, fighting HIV with data and perhaps surprisingly, using our experience of building email spam filters to find a solution. More than 1.8 million people die of HIV-related causes each year — approximately 5,000 deaths per day. One of the great challenges in fighting HIV is that the virus is constantly mutating to avoid attack by the immune system — so much so that it can change as much within one infected person as the influenza virus has throughout recorded history. This makes it incredibly difficult to accurately analyze the virus and develop therapies that attack its elusive weak points. Each mutation means another variable to identify and understand. To complicate things even more, individual immune response varies greatly; some people’s immune systems are able to robustly combat the virus, allowing them to live for years without treatment, while others become sick more quickly as their bodies fail to resist the invasive attack...David Heckerman and Jonathan Carlson of Microsoft Research along with a Microsoft Computational Biology Tool called PhyloD....enables efficient data mining which then leads to specific cell analysis that helps detail virus patterns for further analysis. PhyloD contains an algorithm, code and visualization tools to perform complex pattern recognition and analysis – enabling Heckerman and his colleagues to learn how different individual immune systems respond to the many mutations of the virus..."

Microsoft Becomes First Corporate User of Standard XML-Based Bank Statements

Jason Miller, Executive Editor, Federal News Radio: "The General Services Administration is about to give the Obama administration's policy that requires agencies to use cloud computing a big boost. GSA plans on releasing a request for proposals May 10 for e-mail-as-a-service that could be worth $2.5 billion. Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, said Wednesday there are $20 billion in systems across the government that could move to the cloud, and email and collaboration software are among the easiest first steps. We already are seeing 15 agencies that have identified 950,000 e-mail boxes across 100 email systems that are going to move to the cloud," he said during an update on the administration's 25-point IT reform plan at the White House. "This represents a huge opportunity for [vendors] to aggressively compete for these new opportunities in the cloud space and provide the government with the best value and most innovative technologies." Among those 15 agencies already on their way are the Agriculture Department and GSA. USDA is moving 120,000 employees to Microsoft's cloud, while GSA picked Unisys, which partnered with Google, to move as many as 30,000 employees to a new email system."

Follow up to Google Files Bid Protest Against Dept. of Interior Over Hosted Email and Collaboration Services, news that Google wins: Interior forbidden to award noncompetitive contract to Microsoft - "U.S. Federal Claims Court Judge Susan Braden ruled on Jan. 3 that negotiations for a sole source contract with Microsoft “commenced many months prior to July 15, 2010,” when department officials decided Microsoft's software was their standard for e-mail and computer operating systems. Meanwhile, Google had been trying to get considered for the work as well."

News release: "The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that it is moving its on-premises e-mail and productivity applications to Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, becoming the first cabinet-level federal agency to embrace the cloud. In one of the largest cloud federal government deployments ever, the USDA is moving its 120,000 users to Microsoft Online Services, consolidating 21 different messaging and collaboration systems into one, said Chris Smith, the USDA’s chief information officer. The USDA plans to start the shift within the next four weeks. “This is really about increasing collaboration and communications across the breadth of 120,000 users in 5,000 offices across the country and 100 countries around the globe to better deliver on the USDA’s mission,” he said. “For us a move to the cloud was a question of performance, service, and cost, and this solution will help us streamline our efforts and use taxpayer dollars efficiently.” The USDA will use Microsoft Exchange Online for messaging and calendaring, SharePoint Online for document collaboration, Office Communications Online for instant messaging, and Office Live Meeting for Web conferencing. Smith said that improvements in productivity and communication, such as the ability to see colleagues’ availability and choose whether they want to communicate via chat, voice, or mail, mean that employees will now be able to collaborate more efficiently."

Escaping from Microsoft’s Protected Mode Internet Explorer - Evaluating a potential security boundary, November 2010

The complaint, Google Inc. vs. The United States, filed Ocotber 29, 2010 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, is here. "This action protests the terms of U.S. Department of the Interior ("DOI") Request for Quotation 503786 ("RFQ") for hosted email and collaboration services and DOI's supporting "Limited Source Justification", and seeks preliminary and permanent injunction against the DOI proceeding with the RFQ, or any related procurement, solicitation or task order, without first complying with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements..."

Could Google's Achilles heel be showing as Facebook teams up with Microsoft? "Microsoft advanced its partnership with Facebook this week, a move that could represent the biggest threat to Google's search standing yet. Microsoft and Facebook announced that they're teaming up to make Internet searching more social. Now when someone uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to look for a new car or a book, she can see which ones her Facebook friends liked. It will now be easier for searchers to get their friends' opinions before they make purchasing decisions. Industry watchers said this was an interesting development for search in general, but it also holds big implications for Google in particular. What's notable is that Facebook turned to Microsoft for this deal and not to the search market leader, Google."

The Impact of Competition on Technology Adoption: An Apples-to-PCs Analysis, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, July 2010, Number 462, by Adam Copeland and Adam Hale Shapiro

Street Slide: Browsing Street Level Imagery - Johannes Kopf, Billy Chen, Richard Szeliski, Michael Cohen [Microsoft Research]. Please see the accompanying video here.

Development of a SharePoint Site - Lorette S.J. Weldon continues her series with a discussion on how to interpret and document the requirements of an organization or a specific department in order to develop a successful SharePoint site.

FT.com: "Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees. The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally."

Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Press Release, Brussels, 26 May 2010: EU data protection group says Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! do not comply with data protection rules

New York Times: "This latest version of Office, which includes applications like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, is Microsoft’s long-awaited effort to modernize one of its most lucrative products and to thwart rivals like Google that are nipping at its heels with free Web software. For the first time, Microsoft will provide a free online version of Office that lets people store their documents on the Web rather than on their personal computers...Microsoft has said that Office 2010 will range in price from a limited, free Web version supported by ads to a full-blown version that costs $500, both to be available to consumers in June."

Death to PST Files, A Symantec Hosted Services Whitepaper: "Email is one of your company’s most critical—and most widely used—assets. According to a 2009 study by The Radicati Group, the average corporate email user sends and receives 167 email messages per day. The report estimates that this number will increase to 219 messages per day by 2013. This steady flow of email messages means managing email is more difficult than ever. A company must provide employees constant access to their email accounts and manage copies of every important email to comply with regulatory requirements. If a company is faced with a lawsuit, it must have the ability to easily place legal holds on emails and conduct efficient e-discovery. Since email is the source of so much vital information, users are reluctant to delete old messages, which turns their email system into a personal email filing cabinet. In essence, users create their own email archives using PST files. Most companies impose quotas that limit the amount of storage each person can use for emails. Without these quotas, server disk drives would overflow and email systems would crash."

Deloitte: Cloud computing - A collection of working papers, released September 17, 2009 and published on July 31, 2009.

Via seattlepia.com, Highlights from Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting: "The world's largest software company has a long list of major product releases to look forward to..."

Metadata - What Is It and What Are My Ethical Duties?: Jim Calloway explains why every lawyer needs to understand a few basic things about metadata. He contends that the legal ethics implications of metadata “mining” are no longer just of interest to the lawyers processing electronic discovery, or the ethics mavens.

The Official Google Blog: "As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it here. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome [September 2, 2008] in more than 100 countries."

"Features include significant security, privacy and developer tools updates."

• Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Fact Sheet
  
• Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Images

Microsoft Live Search Blog: "Today we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes. This also means that we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users."

News release: "The European Commission has imposed a penalty payment of 899 million euros [$1.3 billion] on Microsoft for non-compliance with its obligations under the Commission’s March 2004 Decision (see IP/04/382) prior to 22 October 2007. Today’s Decision, adopted under Article 24(2) of Regulation 1/2003, finds that, prior to 22 October 2007, Microsoft had charged unreasonable prices for access to interface documentation for work group servers. The 2004 Decision, which was upheld by the Court of First Instance in September 2007 (see CJE/07/63 and MEMO/07/359), found that Microsoft had abused its dominant position under Article 82 of the EC Treaty, and required Microsoft to disclose interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers at a reasonable price."

Follow up to February 2, 2008 posting Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share, this news:

Press release: "W3C...published an early draft of HTML 5, a major revision of the markup language for the Web. The HTML Working Group is creating HTML 5 to be the open, royalty-free specification for rich Web content and Web applications. The group operates entirely in public with nearly five hundred participants, including representatives from W3C Members ACCESS, AOL, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia, and Opera."

Press release: "Becta [British Educational Communications and Technology Agency], the education technology agency, has published a key report on Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 and on document interoperability which analyses the suitability of both software packages for adoption by schools and colleges."

Press release: "The Library of Congress and Microsoft Corp. have signed a cooperative agreement that will change the way Library visitors experience history. The joint technology initiative will electronically deliver the Library’s immense collection of historical artifacts to patrons visiting its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., and will allow unparalleled and immersive interactive experiences that will bring the institution’s vast historical collections and exhibits to life–on-site and online–through the upcoming myloc.gov Web site."

Press release: "Proofpoint, Inc., the leading provider of unified email security and data loss prevention solutions, today reported spam trends for data collected during the month of November 2007, finding that, on average, spam continues to represent nearly 90% of the total email volume received by large enterprises. Attachment-based spam made a comeback with the prevalence of image-based spam, PDF spam and Microsoft Word document spam all increasing over October levels."

The Inquirer: "Norway's Government has mandated that its websites must use Open Document Format (ODF) for files published for use by the Norwegian public.

"The government has decided that all information on governmental websites should be available in the open formats HTML, PDF or ODF. With this decision the times when public documents where only available in Microsoft's Word-format is coming to an end. "'Everybody should have equal access to public information. From 2009 the citizens will be able to chose which software to use in order to gain access to public information. The government's decision will also improve the competition between suppliers of office applications,' says IT-minister Heidi Grande Røys."

New York Times: Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft - "The growing confrontation between Google and Microsoft promises to be an epic business battle. It is likely to shape the prosperity and progress of both companies, and also inform how consumers and corporations work, shop, communicate and go about their digital lives. Google sees all of this happening on remote servers in faraway data centers, accessible over the Web by an array of wired and wireless devices — a setup known as cloud computing. Microsoft sees a Web future as well, but one whose center of gravity remains firmly tethered to its desktop PC software. Therein lies the conflict."

Press release: "Joined by nationally recognized medical providers, health-management device manufacturers and patient advocacy organizations, Microsoft Corp. today launched Microsoft® HealthVault, a software and services platform aimed at helping people better manage their health information. The company outlined its vision for ways that HealthVault can bring the health and technology industries together to create new applications, services and connected devices that help people manage and monitor their personal health information...The HealthVault platform is available to people for free at http://www.healthvault.com."

Press release: "The European Commission welcomes today's ruling by the Court of First Instance upholding the European Commission’s 2004 decision on Microsoft's abuse of its dominant market position and confirming the totality of the fine imposed. In this decision, Microsoft was fined €497 million for infringing the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82) by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players (see IP/04/382 and MEMO/04/70). This conduct hindered innovation in the markets concerned to the detriment of consumers. To put an end to this abusive behaviour, the Commission ordered Microsoft to disclose interoperability information which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers and to offer a version of its Windows operating system without Windows Media Player. The Court’s ruling confirms that the Commission was right to prohibit Microsoft's anti-competitive conduct which harmed competition to the detriment of consumers."

Press release: Justice Department Files Joint Status Report on Microsoft’s Compliance with the Final Judgments: "The Department of Justice told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia [June 19, 2007] that it has reached an agreement with Microsoft Corporation to resolve a complaint by Google regarding Microsoft’s desktop search function in Windows Vista. In a joint filing with the court, the Department, 17 state Attorneys General, and the District of Columbia said that the agreement, which aims to promote user choice, will resolve any issues the complaint may raise under the final judgments."

Source: "Privacy International (PI) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. PI is based in London, and has an office in Washington, D.C. Together with members in 40 countries, PI has conducted campaigns throughout the world on issues ranging from wiretapping and national security activities, to ID cards, video surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and medical privacy, and works with a wide range of parliamentary and inter-governmental organisations such as the European Parliament, the House of Lords and UNESCO."

Hao Chen, Assistant Professor, UC Davis in collaboration with In collaboration with Microsoft Researchers Yi-Min Wang and Ming Ma, pub lished Spam Double-Funnel: Connecting Web Spammers with Advertisers. [Darlene Fichter]

M-07-11, Implementation of Commonly Accepted Security Configurations for Windows Operating Systems (March 22, 2007)

WSJ free feature: How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation - Gates's Philanthropy Puts Microsoft Atop Yearly Survey Of Best, Worst Companies: "Top-ranked Microsoft managed to beat Johnson & Johnson, whose emotionally appealing baby-products business had kept it in first place for a remarkable seven consecutive years. In the Reputation Quotient survey conducted by market-research firm Harris Interactive Inc., respondents gave Microsoft very high marks for leadership and financial results. But Mr. Gates's personal philanthropy also boosted the public's opinion of Microsoft."

Press release, November 1, 2006: "The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), two of the leading public-interest advocacy groups working on behalf of a more diverse and competitive online environment, filed a complaint today with the Federal Trade Commission, calling on the commission to undertake an immediate, formal investigation of online advertising practices. As the groups make clear in their 50-page filing (PDF), the data collection and interactive marketing system that is shaping the entire U.S. electronic marketplace is being built to aggressively track Internet users wherever they go, creating data profiles used in ever-more sophisticated and personalized "one-to-one" targeting schemes."

Microsoft public version of extensive internal privacy guidelines for developers: "In response to requests from customers, partners, ISVs, educators, advocates, and regulators, we created a public set of privacy guidelines for developing software products and services. These guidelines are based on our internal guidelines and our experience incorporating privacy into the development process. By documenting our principles, we hope to help anyone building products and services to meet customer expectations and deliver a more trustworthy experience."

AmLaw Tech Survey: Law Firms Play Variations on Old Themes - "The 11th annual survey finds firms expanding IT while adopting new versions of old standards."

Press Release, October 18, 2006: "Microsoft Corp. today released to the public Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 for Windows XP, the latest version of the world’s most popular Web browser. Customers can upgrade and browse the Web with confidence knowing that the new browser provides a greater level of security, makes everyday tasks easier, and works well with the Web sites they visit."

Joint Status Report on Microsoft's Compliance with the Final Judgments - Aug 30, 2006.

"Welcome to CodePlex, Microsoft's community development Web site. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with your fellow developers around the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback."

The un-Google, June 15, 2006, from The Economist print edition (free online, if you view an advert first): "Google dominates the lucrative market for web-search, but its rivals [Microsoft, Ask, Yahoo] are setting out to change that."

Microsoft Security Response Center Blog

Department of the Treasury's Office of the Inspector General on Tax Administration Report: Invoice Audit of the Microsoft Consulting Services Contract - TIRNO-03-K-00191, June 2006 (30 pages, PDF).

Joint Status Report on Microsoft's Compliance with the Final Judgments - May 15, 2006 (25 pages, PDF)

From Microsoft Research, Photo2Search: Explore the Real World via Camera Phone

Press release: "Neil Holloway, president of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), unveiled a global law enforcement campaign that will target cybercriminals behind phishing attacks. Microsoft Corp. announced that by the end of June 2006 it will have initiated legal actions on more than 100 cases in EMEA against individuals suspected of committing online fraud; 53 of these will have already started by the end of March 2006...The legal actions are linked to a larger Microsoft(R) program, the Global Phishing Enforcement Initiative (GPEI), launched by the company to coordinate and expand its many anti-phishing efforts worldwide to fight phishers through consumer protection, partnerships and prosecution."

Inside Look: Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2, by Wei-Meng Lee

House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, February 15, 2006 Hearing, The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?

Links to statements and testimony below are in PDF:

Press release: Microsoft Outlines Policy Framework for Dealing with Government Restrictions on Blog Content

Following up on the news this week, Google Fights DOJ Order to Produce Records of Database Searches, this related posting Privacy and MSN Search states the the facts as follows:

From the IE Blog, news that the upcoming IE7 will have a 'Delete Browsing History' feature that allows users to easily eliminate a range of information on their browsing activities, all from one menu. This information includes temporary Internet files, cookies, the history of websites most recently visited, form data, and passwords. Also note: "...if you're part of a domain in a corporate environment, an administrator has the ability to disable certain aspects of this feature."

RSS Aggregation - Part 1: The Partnership

PC World: Microsoft Makes RSS a Two-Way Street - Proposed 'extensions' to specification allow multidirectional synchronization.

As a follow-up to my August 12, 2005 posting, Preregistration of Certain Unpublished Copyright Claims, these comments hand delivered to Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office, by Tim Berners-Lee and Daniel J. Weitzner of the World Wide Web Consortium, document their oppositon to "the use of a single vendor's World Wide Web browser" to create and submit online forms to the Copyright Office.

Microsoft exec defends RSS rebranding - Renaming to 'Web feeds' spurs debate among bloggers

Via the IEBlog, you may view the new logo and branding for the yet to be released IE 7.

From the August 4, 2005 Federal Register: Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, Preregistration of Certain Unpublished Copyright Claims, Copyright Office, Library of Congress.

"The focus of this white paper is to describe the basic workings of a new capability, the Microsoft® Phishing Filter, that will be included in the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 7. The Microsoft Phishing Filter will not only help provide consumers with a dynamic system of warning and protection against potential phishing attacks, but — more important — it will also benefit legitimate ISPs and Web commerce site developers that want to try to ensure that their brands are not being 'spoofed' to propagate scams and that their legitimate outreach to customers is not confusing or misinterpreted by filtering software." [the document is in Word, and available at this Link]

Security Guide for Small Business - "This guide helps explain why security is important to your business and outlines steps to better security."

The Microsoft Development Center has extensive and detailed documentation on RSS implementation in Longhorn: "This paper describes RSS in the context of a vision for how web content is and will be consumed, explores opportunities enabled by incorporating RSS functionality into applications and outlines the Windows platform services that make this easy."

Microsoft press release: Searching just got smarter with launch of MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search:

Press release: Microsoft to Deliver Automated, All-in-One PC Health Service for Consumers

Press release: "More than 600 new Internet security vulnerabilities were discovered during the first quarter of 2005, according to the SANS Institute and a team of experts from industry and government. This group has identified the most critical vulnerabilities disclosed in Q1 that pose critical risks that need to be addressed through patching and other defensive actions. Individuals and organizations that do not correct these problems face a heightened threat that remote, unauthorized hackers will take control of their computers and use them for identity theft, for industrial espionage, or for distributing spam.."

"Here at the Microsoft Security Response Center, we investigate thousands of security reports every year. In some cases, we find that a report describes a bona fide security vulnerability resulting from a flaw in one of our products; when this happens, we develop a patch as quickly as possible to correct the error. In other cases, the reported problems simply result from a mistake someone made in using the product. But many fall in between. They discuss real security problems, but the problems don't result from product flaws. Over the years, we've developed a list of issues like these, that we call the 10 Immutable Laws of Security. Don't hold your breath waiting for a patch that will protect you from the issues we'll discuss below. It isn't possible for Microsoft—or any software vendor—to "fix" them, because they result from the way computers work. But don't abandon all hope yet—sound judgment is the key to protecting yourself against these issues, and if you keep them in mind, you can significantly improve the security of your systems." [Link]

Microsoft is done beta testing MSN search, and it is now "offically" live.

In this comparison of MS AntiSpyware vs Ad-Aware vs SpyBot, Microsoft's beta application receives high marks for form, features and function.

Fortune.com has an extensive article on the slippery slope effect of relying on the "viral" linking aspect of blogs to promote products, as well as highlighting recent examples of the enormous impact of bloggers' responses to instances of what they perceive as corporate misdeeds and the marketing of faulty products.

Features include [See this link for more details]:

Thanks to Paige, who alerted me to this article with details about Microsoft's FlexWiki, a free, "experimental collaboration tool, based on WikiWiki.

"EDUCAUSE has created a listserv for institutions to share experiences and advice about the impending Microsoft release of Service Pack 2 (SP2). Support and help desk staff, security officers, and others will be prime beneficiaries. You can subscribe to the listserv and access archives online."

The Four-Letter Word That Can Get People Excited About Your Products:

Knowing Their Politics by the Software They Use. Democratic campaign party websites are using open source apps, and the Republicans are using Microsoft.

From the Public Patent Foundation press release:

The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is now providing 22 RSS feeds for its developer centers. [therssweblog]

When Software Fails to Stop Spam, It's Time to Bring In the Detectives.

Microsoft to launch new search tool. According to CBS MarketWatch, the new application will be launched as a beta, and "allow users to search for files and information across their PCs, in e-mails, on the Internet and from other sources." See also Google Readies Launch of New Desktop Search Tool.

An article is today's New York Times describes the new, apparently free, search engine tool, code named "Puffin," that Google is preparing to introduce for use in locating files and text on your PC.

The Commission of the European Communities decision, April 21, 2004, is 302 pages, pdf.

Patent 6,700,564 granted March 4, 2004 - Input device including a wheel assembly for scrolling an image in multiple directions:

An update on the Microsoft-Eolas patent dispute:

Microsoft announced that an update will be forthcoming (no date provided) to patch a recently revealed IE 6 browser flaw that leaves users vulnerable to unintentionally downloading malware through files from websites that appear legitimate. A description of this flaw, as well as a demonstration of its application, is provided by the security company Secunia.

Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler is quoted in this Internet.com article in response to yesterday's patent infringement decision (1:99-cv-626), "We feel very good about our prospects on appeal. We remain steadfast in our belief that the Eolas patent is not valid. While the judge did not grant all our post trial motions, the court did accept some of our arguments and decided to stay the injunction pending our appeal."

This afternoon, Judge James B. Zagel, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago), refused to overturn a $521 million verdict against Microsoft, ruling in favor of Eolas Technologies Inc. in their web patent infringment dispute. The patent at issue is number 5,838,906, and is titled "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document."

From the Washington Post, Online Financial Crime Headed From Bad to Worse. Worms, viruses and browser flaws will all continue to pose security risks for enterprise wide networks and home users alike in 2004.

From the Washington Post's Jonathan Krim, this article Patenting Air or Protecting Property? reviews the growing criticism of the USPTO's patent process, and details the marked increase in lawsuits involving Internet-related technologies from companies that include high-profile Amazon, Microsoft, Blackberry, and eBay.

TechDirt posted on a patent awarded by the USPTO to Microsoft yesterday for a "Method and apparatus for writing a windows application in HTML."

"Software giant Microsoft is testing its answer to Google's popular news aggregator and search site. "MSN Newsbot", on MSN UK, France, Spain and Italy, signals at least one of Microsoft's intentions as it seeks to build out its own search technology." [Link]

The Federal Trade Commission issued a news release today on a temporary restraining order obtained from District Court, Northern District of Maryland against D Squared Solutions, a company that bombarded Windows Messenger service users with pop-up ads, whether or not consumers were on the web.

"Microsoft Corp. today announced the creation of the Anti-Virus Reward Program, initially funded with $5 million (U.S.), to help law enforcement agencies identify and bring to justice those who illegally release damaging worms, viruses and other types of malicious code on the Internet. Microsoft will provide the monetary rewards for information resulting in the arrest and conviction of those responsible for launching malicious viruses and worms on the Internet. Residents of any country are eligible for the reward, according to the laws of that country, because Internet viruses affect the Internet community worldwide." [Link]

Microsoft's new Windows Server 2003 allows users to implement digital rights management applications for Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents as well as Outlook emails. [Link] See my previous posting on this new version here.

From the World Wide Web Consortium:

Today's New York Times reported that Google seems intent on pursuing an IPO in early 2004 (with an offering of 10-15% of the company's stock), and that talks with Microsoft have not resulted in any form of agreement.

The BBC reports that Microsoft Office 2003, available tomorrow, will include new e-mail privacy and security features, including the ability to designate specific readers, prevent message forwarding and printing, and a "time-stamp" which results in email deletion on a specified date.

From the USPS:

United States Patent 6,632,248, Customization of network documents by accessing customization information on a server computer using uniquie (note: the word unique is misspelled in the patent document itself) user identifiers.

According to PCWorld.com, Microsoft may institute automatic security updates via a default option.

Hacker victim files lawsuit blaming Microsoft security:

Microsoft Partners With Amazon:

Microsoft Confirms Changes to Windows, IE in Wake of Lawsuit:

From the review:

This new website, launched today by the California Dept. of Justice, coordinator for the participating states attorneys general listed on the left side of the homepage, allows consumers to post anonymous, online complaints concerning Microsoft's "unlawful monopoly conduct."

IE Patent Loss Aftershocks Reverberate. This article indicates that in the wake of the recent $521 milllion patent verdict against Microsoft, the company will make unspecified changes to its IE browser.

China blocks foreign software use in gov't:

Microsoft loser in patent suit: $500 million verdict in Net case: "Microsoft was told by a jury to pay $521 million to the University of California and a Chicago-area company that claimed they invented technology used in the Internet Explorer browser."

"Microsoft's Web site was made inaccessible for an hour and 40 minutes Friday afternoon when a denial-of-service attack overwhelmed the site with traffic, making it impossible for legitimate page requests to get through." [Link]

From the LexisNexis press release: "LexisNexis will provide a legal research option on Microsoft’s new Research Task Pane featured in Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003, Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003, and Microsoft Office Access 2003." (thanks Donna).

Microsoft has released into beta testing its speech server and said it will launch a partner program for solution providers building speech applications.

Microsoft appealed to the 4th Circuit to reverse a lower court decision forcing the company to include Java programming language in new releases of Windows XP. See my previous posts on this issue here, here and here.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an order (in PDF) granting stay of the District Court Order in Microsoft's ongoing battle against Sun Microsystems. This permits Microsoft to delay adding Java to updated versions of Windows XP. Microsoft's press release on this news is available here.

Not surprisingly, on January 22, Microsoft filed an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal with the 4th Circuit, of the January 21 order by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz(Maryland) granting Sun Microsystems Inc.'s motion for preliminary injunction requiring Microsoft to add Java to its Windows OS within 120 days of the order.

On January 20, Microsoft and Sun delivered an agreement to Maryland U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz detailing how Microsoft would implement Java in its Windows OS, in accordance with the judge's order to do so within 120 days. See this Reuter's article for more details.

There are several reports today that Microsoft will release its source code to governments around the world in an attempt to stem the tide of their migration to open source operating systems such as the increasingly popular Linux. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Russia and NATO have already signed up for the Microsoft initiative."

However, the "Government Security Program" comes with various strings attached, and is primarily meant to support Microsoft's marketing efforts concerning the security and stability of its applications, and allow governments to test the various Windows platforms within their specific, secure environments.

According to a press release from plaintiff's counsel Eugene Crew, Microsoft has agreed to a record settlement for a series of antitrust class action suits. California consumers and businesses will receive $1.1 billion for Microsoft products that they "purchased between Feb. 18, 1995, and Dec. 15, 2001, for use in the State of California." Payment will be in the form of vouchers, which may be used to purchase computers or software from any company.

See also Microsoft's resource page on the case here, which includes the Transcript of Microsoft News Teleconference on California Class Action Antitrust Settlement.