Microsoft has developed an audio and video teleconference system known as RoundTable that will begin shipping mid-2007, the company said Friday.
RoundTable works with Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Live Meeting, allowing companies to integrate virtual presentations, shared whiteboards and file sharing into audio and video conferences.
The table-top camera device about the size of a traditional speaker phone connects to a standard PC. The camera creates a 360-degree panoramic view displaying side-by-side digital images of each conference participant.
The cross-industry group Microsoft formed last spring to better integrate technology into the process of drug development has announced its second research venturea project intended to simplify the process for identifying and validating genomic biomarkers, which often indicate the likelihood of disease or drug efficacy.
The BioIT Alliance's first project, a "collaborative molecular environment" in which researchers can share data visualization and annotation tools, is well under way with The Scripps Research Institute.
"One of the most important fields of research today is in gaining an understanding of the relationship between genetic traits and clinical outcomes," said Dr. Michael Hanley, vice president of discovery research at Amylin Pharmaceuticals.
Microsoft said on Friday it would remove links to articles in Belgian newspapers rather than be sued for copyright violation like Google was.
Microsoft received a cease and desist letter last week from Copiepresse, which represents French and German-language Belgian newspaper publishers, with complaints similar to a lawsuit the organization filed against Google and won. Copiepresse argues that posting article text violates copyright, even if the text is very short and the accompanying link drives traffic to the publisher Web site.
"Microsoft, however, underlines that these measures do not imply any acknowledgement or recognition of Copiepresse's rights and that it reserves all rights."
Microsoft is reacting to a report that the just-released Internet Explorer 7 contains a bug by saying the flaw is actually in Outlook Express, the free e-mail program included with Windows 2000 and XP. The security company that issued the original alert, however, said that didn't matter: attackers could use IE 7 to grab users' data.
Thursday, Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia warned that IE 7, which Microsoft unveiled in final form the night before, included a cross-domain information-disclosure vulnerability. The bug, said Secunia, was in the MHTML: URI handler, and could be used in a malicious site to hijack data entered on a separate site at which the user was already surfing. The vulnerability, said experts, might be used by identity thieves to rip off bank and credit card account usernames and passwords.
Who wants to be a programmer? Microsoft is hoping everyday folks will take the challenge by using its non-professional programming tools, and other vendors are following suit.
Microsoft is poised to tap the nascent market for development tools to enable non-professionals to create applications, having established a team specifically built for this push and planning several initiatives, including a new Web site strictly for beginners.
Moreover, Microsoft hopes to tap into the power of its new Windows Vista operating system with its new user interface and communications subsystems to further empower non-professionals.
Nvidia has noted that it is the first graphics processing unit company to ship WHQL-certified graphics drivers for Microsoft's upcoming operating system, Windows Vista.
The announcement comes just after Microsoft unveiled its Windows Vista logo program, which is designed to help encourage compatibility in partner software and hardware. One of the products showcased by Microsoft is the line of Nvidia GeForce graphics cards, and Nvidia has qualified for the logo for upcoming products as well.
The release of the new drivers will support over 100 different products and benefit users in a number of ways, according to the company.
While Windows Vista is nearing completion, Microsoft has delayed the next service pack update for its predecessor, Windows XP.
This week, Microsoft updated its lifecycle Web site to note that the introduction of Service Pack 3--the next XP update--has been pushed back until the first half of 2008.
Service Pack 3 has seen its schedule pushed out a few times, amid delays to Windows Vista. Most recently, Microsoft said in January that people should expect to see SP3 in the second half of 2007.
Microsoft officials in France had earlier said that the service pack could arrive late this year, but that was when Vista was set to debut earlier as well.
Windows Vista promotions that give free or discounted updates to 2006's holiday season PC buyers will cut as much as $600 million from Microsoft's revenues, a Wall Street analyst said Thursday.
UBS AG's Heather Bellini has reduced her sales estimate from $13.4 billion to $12.6 billion for Microsoft's second quarter, which ends in December, Bloomberg News reported. Microsoft will probably be forced to defer as much as $600 million in Windows client sales if it goes through with the anticipated coupon offer, Bellini told Bloomberg.
Microsoft's door-to-door campaign to ferret out copyright infringers in the U.K. has reduced the piracy rate for its software
sooner than expected, company officials said Thursday.
The company's "Keep IT Real" program, launched in February, has cut the piracy rate for Windows XP from 16.7 percent to 12.4 percent for the Windows XP OS said Michala Alexander, head
of antipiracy for the U.K.
"We were really pleased to see the rate dropping so quickly," she said.
At the program's onset, Microsoft said it wanted to reduce the rate to 11.7 percent within three years, but now aims to hit
that goal by next February, Alexander said.
A super scanner and a major university have agreed to work on Microsoft's book digitization project. Kirtas Technologies, a maker of high-speed scanners and digitization software, signed a deal Tuesday with Microsoft to scan works for its Windows Live Book Search project.
The Cornell University Library also signed on Tuesday with Microsoft as a partner, agreeing to let its collection be scanned. The project, when complete, will make public domain works, as well as copyrighted material from publishers who opt-in, freely available through Microsoft's online Web application.