Google Chrome OS: Google says it will release a new operating system, built around its Chrome browser, which will be open source and will initially be targeted at netbooks. Shipment is expected second half of 2010. No response yet from Microsoft. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle on Jul 7, 2009 - 210 comments

What is a browser? Nobody seems to be sure. [more inside]
posted by chorltonmeateater on Jun 18, 2009 - 81 comments

Its reach is impossible to measure precisely, but more than 3 million vulnerable machines may ultimately have been infected. : The inside story on the Conficker Worm at New Scientist.
posted by The Whelk on Jun 15, 2009 - 84 comments

Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer in Europe "Microsoft said it made it’s decision following an anti-trust investigation by the European Union." [more inside]
posted by sloe on Jun 12, 2009 - 84 comments

Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, goes beta. Cribbed from live.com, the layout for bing is... strangely familiar. Early reviews are mixed, with mixed results, mostly noting that the results less useful than google, especially when it comes to google.
posted by boo_radley on Jun 1, 2009 - 173 comments

Reinier van der Ende, an x-ray technician at the largest hospital in the northern part of the Netherlands, decided to combine his work with one of his hobbies and proceeded to x-ray his collection of video game consoles, peripherals and game cartridges. Here are the fruits of his labour. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on May 2, 2009 - 20 comments

A little detective work traced the problem to default date format conversions and floating-point format conversions in the very useful Excel program package. The date conversions affect at least 30 gene names; the floating-point conversions affect at least 2,000 if Riken identifiers are included. These conversions are irreversible; the original gene names cannot be recovered.

Microsoft announced today, it will open a small number of stores to compete directly against Apple. Some think it's a dubious idea. "In a statement, Microsoft said the first priority of Mr. Porter, who is also a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, will be to define where to place the Microsoft stores and when to open them."
posted by Xurando on Feb 13, 2009 - 115 comments

Microsoft has just announced Songsmith. What is it? I think it is some Karaoke / Garageband / Guitar-hero like thing.

All I do know is: The promotional ad video for it is a trainwreck.
posted by mrzarquon on Jan 8, 2009 - 194 comments

So you've decided that you're uneasy with Apple's virtual monopoly on digital music. So you picked Microsoft's Zune. Hell, maybe you even got a tattoo! You're bucking the trend, and you're satisfied with your purchase. It's not like Microsoft would make a faulty machine, would they? Well...Happy New Year!
posted by yellowbinder on Dec 31, 2008 - 194 comments

BBC: Users of the world's most common web browser (good old IE!) have been advised to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed. Microsoft Security Advisory 961051. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Dec 16, 2008 - 116 comments

The National Security Agency is building a data center in San Antonio that’s the size of the Alamodome. Microsoft has opened an 11-acre data center a few miles away. Coincidence? Not according to author James Bamford, who probably knows more about the NSA than any outsider. Bamford's new book reports that the biggest U.S. spy agency wanted assurances that Microsoft would be in San Antonio before it moved ahead with the Texas Cryptology Center. Bamford notes that under current law, the NSA could legally tap into Microsoft’s data without a court order. Whatever you do, don't take pictures of it the spy building unless you want to be taken in for questioning.
posted by up in the old hotel on Dec 8, 2008 - 42 comments

Microsoft and Linux have been battling for dominance in Africa for some time now. In South Africa, Linux elicited the help of a former Microsoft executive, to which Windows countered with a massive free software giveaway. A more recent front has been in Nigeria, where Mandriva looked set to secure a government contract, until Microsoft allegedly paid $400,000 to have that contract dumped. Microsoft, for its part, has denied the allegations.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on Nov 12, 2008 - 40 comments

Microsoft is taking unprecedented measures to combat China's piracy. The people aren't happy. Is the company shooting itself in the foot?
posted by strangeguitars on Oct 22, 2008 - 66 comments

The Wait is over. Microsoft brings Seinfeld and Gates together. The verdict?. Meh. (Previously).
posted by Xurando on Sep 6, 2008 - 86 comments

Facil, an open-source community based in Québec, is suing the Québec government for buying Microsoft software when free alternatives are available. Facil's press release says, in part, "From February to June 2008, FACIL has noticed sales of proprietary software for more than 25 million dollars. These purchases were made for products offered by large multinational enterprises, with no regard to suppliers in Quebec. ... While most of the developed countries have started, a few years back, migrating their technological infrastructures to Free Software, Quebec's public administration is far behind." Some applaud Facil's move. Others, not so much.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on Aug 28, 2008 - 47 comments

the first full release of Photosynth. Stonehenge. Venice. Previously 1,2,3. PC only.
posted by signal on Aug 23, 2008 - 65 comments

Celebrity computer endorsements throughout the ages.
posted by Artw on Aug 21, 2008 - 65 comments

Using data from the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network, researchers have concluded that "any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation." [more inside]
posted by Knappster on Aug 2, 2008 - 29 comments

Microsoft, browbeaten by criticism over Windows Vista, demoed a new operating system code-named Project Mojave to a group of Windows XP users. An overwhelming majority of the XP users liked what they saw. It was then that Microsoft told them they were drinking Folgers Crystals, er, using Windows Vista. [more inside]
posted by dw on Jul 24, 2008 - 163 comments

Bill Gates files a bug report: "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jun 26, 2008 - 66 comments

Playing Dirty: Greenpeace vs Nintendo, Microsoft, et al. "The Greenpeace scientific report Playing Dirty states that video games consoles have tested positive for hazardous chemicals and materials such as polyvinyl chloride, phthalates, beryllium and bromine." [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on May 21, 2008 - 31 comments

Microsoft's much anticipated WorldWide Telescope was released today (in the past hour actually). Article in New York Times and TED speech.
posted by stbalbach on May 12, 2008 - 136 comments

The Day the Music Died The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [...] has also been warning anyone who would listen that they should not “purchase” encrypted music from these services, since if these services go under then all that “purchased” music will no longer… what’s the word… “play”. But mostly people ignored them (and me), because, you know, Microsoft was at the center of it all, and nobody ever got fired for “buying” from Microsoft.
posted by desjardins on May 7, 2008 - 67 comments

There will be no MicroHoo!, for MS has pulled its offer for Yahoo! According to a source close to Microsoft, Yahoo founder and CEO Jerry Yang had "unrealistic expectations."
posted by porn in the woods on May 3, 2008 - 53 comments

"Bruce Springsteen" sings the glories of Vista SP1. I wouldn't be surprised if the real Springsteen leads a strike force into Microsoft headquarters when he sees his duplicate (complete with faux Courtney Cox in the audience) singing "See what's on employees' desktops / with AIS and M-DOP".
posted by WCityMike on Apr 16, 2008 - 67 comments

Wheel of branding, turn turn turn, tell us what resonates with our target demographic. Lego… anime… pokémon!

Windows Vista Sensei spends his time "traveling from place to place in a quest to help the underprivileged global citizens… With his sense of clarity he possesses the things that legends are made of." If that marketing copy isn't compelling enough, there's a game, a conference, a web comic and a series of "webcasts" you can complete to earn the "311t3" Source Fource figures. Collect them all! [Compare][Contrast]
posted by Rictic on Feb 20, 2008 - 28 comments

delete adult scroll conflict for (or: 10 minutes of Perl scripting with Vista)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Feb 16, 2008 - 62 comments

Microsoft offers $44.6 billion for Yahoo! The grand old man of Redmond has finally come out of the closet to woo the loveliest lady in Sunnyvale, offering a staggering $44.6 billion in cash or shares. Cash or shares? Wow! Bearing in mind the...ah...disappointments both companies have suffered over the recent past, is this a marriage made in heaven? Or hell?
posted by Duug on Feb 1, 2008 - 199 comments

You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else. To see if you have permission, sign in. Or just add northpole@live.com to your IM. Failing that, see what Howard has to offer.
posted by gman on Dec 6, 2007 - 20 comments

[Patent Lawsuit Filter] On Wednesday Sun Microsystems announced a counter suit against Network Appliance, wherein they will draw on their "defensive portfolio" which is "one of the largest patent arsenals on the internet". They are going to be requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of NetApp's filer products from the marketplace, and also seeking monetary damages (half of which they've pledged to donate to the Software Freedom Law Center and Peer to Patent Project). Last month, NetApp sued Sun for patent infringements in ZFS. Earlier this month in Texas, the first ever patent infringement lawsuit against Linux distributors was filed. [more inside]
posted by finite on Oct 26, 2007 - 36 comments

Microsoft buys stake in Facebook. Microsoft has paid $240m (£117m) for a 1.6% stake in Facebook that values the hugely popular social networking site at $15bn (£7.3bn). Facebook spurned an offer from Microsoft's rival Google, which was also keen to invest the site. Microsoft will also sell internet ads for Facebook outside the United States as part of the deal that took several weeks of negotiating. Mark Zuckerberg started the online social networking site in his Harvard University dorm room less than four years ago. [more inside]
posted by Tommy Gnosis on Oct 25, 2007 - 114 comments

The Open Content Alliance poses a threat to Google and Microsoft's competing library digitization projects. OCA was founded by the Internet Archive, whose main claim to fame is the Wayback Machine, designed to archive the internet's web history. OCA's mission is to open the nation's library collections to universal web search by digitizing books and making them as widely accessible as possible. [more inside]
posted by richards1052 on Oct 22, 2007 - 9 comments

Steve Ballmers's been busy. Whether it's attacking Google and Linux (or being attacked back), berating the moms of 13-year-old girls who hate Vista, or just being called an alcoholic, the perennial Microsoft CEO been everywhere these days.
What happened to the good old days when he just yelled a lot?
posted by FeldBum on Oct 11, 2007 - 45 comments

Is Microsoft the latest victim of binary prefix confusion? [via TechAmok]
posted by Fezboy! on Sep 27, 2007 - 26 comments

LOLMICROSOFT!!!1!
posted by quonsar on Sep 24, 2007 - 122 comments

No PC should be without MS DOS 5 - apparently because it has mouse support, a full-screen editor, and an utterly inexplicable music video. Guaranteed to save you at least 45K!!! of RAM, that is. [more inside]
posted by Afroblanco on Sep 12, 2007 - 55 comments

Halo 3: Play-testing evolved.
posted by nthdegx on Aug 26, 2007 - 56 comments

In the world of conversation killers, talking about Excel to the average person ranks up there with the best. At the same time, there is always a chance that you wish you could have that conversation at work when it gets down to the wire. Even as a pro, you might need that brush up on Array Functions, calculation tricks, VBA examples or some examples from one of the well known authors on Excel. There is also no shortage of people who dedicate their working lives to this arcane program and are more than willing to assist others for free by posting solved issues on their websites. People like David McRitchie, OzGrid, Rob Bovey, Ron de Bruin, John Walkenbach, Dick Kusleika, Joseph Rubin and Chip Pearson.

Or if you just want to be a Debbie Downer at the next party, just take page from any of the following, memorize it. and recite it when faced with that nudge you don't want to talk to: Excel Support, Jon Peltier, Colo's Junk Room, Scriptorium, Andrew's Excel Tips, Andy Pope, Anthony's VBA Page, Rodney Powell, Array Formulas, Erlandsen Data Consulting, Excel-it, ExcelUser, JKP's Excel Page, John Lacher, McGimpsey, Bill Jelen, Stephen Bullen, Tushar Mehta, VBusers.com, The Excel Nexus, The Excel Logic Page, and Anthoney Does Excel. It’s a fast and easy way to ward off lounge lizards.
posted by lampshade on Aug 18, 2007 - 42 comments

Space World is a joint project between NASA, Microsoft Live Labs and MSNBC.com. It uses Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth to create 3D tours of the space shuttle Endeavour and NASA's Kennedy Space Center facilities.

(Tech preview, Windows XP SP2 and Vista RC 1, IE 6&7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 only, gotta install Photosynth plugin). Others can see a movie demo.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Aug 6, 2007 - 41 comments

Wired presents an extraordinary look at "one of the most ambitious search-and-rescue missions in history," after one of Microsoft's researchers, Jim Gray, and his boat, the Tenacious, went missing in the Pacific Ocean outside San Francisco in January 2007. Cartography meets law meets 2.0 technology. "First the Coast Guard scoured 132,000 square miles of ocean. Then a team of scientists and Silicon Valley power players turned the eyes of the global network onto the Pacific." Eventually, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, the US Navy, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium jumped in – "as did astronomers from leading universities." To this day, Jim Gray has never been found, and his disappearance cannot be explained. Read Wired for more.
posted by BLDGBLOG on Jul 22, 2007 - 35 comments

You know who else liked Xbox Live?
posted by EarBucket on Jul 14, 2007 - 49 comments

Is the next President of the United States running Linux? The Democrats love open source and the Republicans love Microsoft.
posted by caddis on Jul 5, 2007 - 41 comments

Life at Google - The Microsoftie Perspective Microsoft Employee writes: "The following has been making the rounds on just about every internal email list I belong to in Microsoft. Here it is to share a little insight with the rest of the world. Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. Any peek is a good peek." Let the metavalanche begin.
posted by psmealey on Jun 27, 2007 - 66 comments

The human network is the paradigm and the infrastructure which supports social software.
posted by zippy on Jun 25, 2007 - 16 comments

Google v Microsoft: Fight!
posted by taosbat on Jun 10, 2007 - 26 comments

Photosynth. Blaise Aguera y Arcas (second one down) does a live demo (with some subtle humor) of the product we've discussed previously. Via the wonderful Ted (mentioned a few times).
posted by allkindsoftime on Jun 6, 2007 - 24 comments

The Bill and Steve show: Jobs and Gates sit down together and discuss the past, present and future at the D5 conference.
posted by jaimev on May 30, 2007 - 12 comments

"IdeaFarm (tm) Associates is an economic association for unselfish people. Its mission is to promote unselfish living by making life better for unselfish people. [...] The organizer is an economist and software developer. He is completing work on a new computer operating system that could destroy the Microsoft monopoly, create a new Internet safe enough for children and the elderly, and provide Associates with a new way to find work and sell products and services."
posted by Avenger on May 18, 2007 - 30 comments

The secret Iraq documents my 8-year-old found. With a couple of keystrokes, you too can read the hidden history of the Coalition Provisional Authority, America's late, unlamented occupation government in Iraq.
posted by nevercalm on May 18, 2007 - 50 comments