After a seven-year tenure on Microsoft's board of directors, Ann McLaughlin Korologos has declined to seek re-election, citing other personal and professional commitments. Her retirement was announced on Friday. Korologos also currently serves as chairman of Rand's board of trustees.
The results of Microsoft's board elections are determined at the company's annual shareholder meeting. Among other members, the current board includes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, company chairman and co-founder Bill Gates, and former Microsoft president and COO John Shirley.
Microsoft on Friday was unhappy with the online release of a training video that was made to look like an episode of the popular British comedy "The Office," and featured the show's star and creator Ricky Gervais.
Microsoft in the United Kingdom made the 2004 video as a fun way to instruct people on how not to act at work. The 37-minute video was only for internal use, but somehow got released on the Web.
In the two-part video, Gervais plays David Brent, the bumbling boss in "The Office," in what could easily pass for a lost episode of the BBC series. On the film, he is being interviewed about Stephen Merchant, who also was as actor on the original show.
Microsoft has quietly added video search to its Windows Live search engine.
The new feature, which is in beta form, allows users to type in search terms and find video clips related to those terms.
Users can test the new service .
Results are displayed with a still photo of the video, and a brief description of the contents of the video.
Microsoft joins Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc., all of which already provide search engines for online videos.
The software company continues to add services to its Windows Live services portfolio in an effort to bolster online ad revenue.
Microsoft's forthcoming Zune player is shooting to be the life of the party, allowing users to create mobile social networks and stream music to nearby friends or strangers, according to a government regulatory filing.
Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices, according to documents filed Thursday with the Federal Communications Commission. With the device's wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as "promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists," according to the filing.
Microsoft has modified its new interface for Office 2007 after complaints from beta testers that the "ribbon" system took up too much screen space.
Office 2007 had ditched the traditional drop-down menu approach of most Windows applications in favor of the ribbon, which displays functions in new categories such as Home, Insert and Mailing in a strip across the top of the screen.
Microsoft said the new interface would make it easier for people to access the wide range of features in applications such as Word, Excel and Access.
Microsoft hopes going wireless will draw in consumers to its Xbox 360 system. As gaming console wars begin to heat up for the holidays, the company announced a slew of games and wireless accessories on Thursday.
Products include the Xbox Live Vision camera for online video chat, available in the United States on Sept. 19, and a racing wheel for driving video games.
The Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel arrives in November. The controller, designed for racing games, will include force feedback to simulate bumpy roads.
Microsoft's IntelliMouse Explorer is back.
Scheduled for resurrection this October, the popular mouse will enjoy new life as the IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0, which Microsoft says will have the tracking and responsiveness gamers have pined for. No longer will devotees of the device have to trawl eBay for the discontinued devices or preserve old versions in protective cases.
Logitech on Thursday also announced new mice, but the pair of fast-scrolling wireless devices is targeted at those who do daily battle with spreadsheets rather than computer-generated warlords or enemy armies.
Microsoft has confirmed more details of its forthcoming Live Drive service, which will offer free online storage.
Speaking at a blogger's breakfast before the opening of Microsoft's
Tech Ed conference in Sydney on Tuesday, Microsoft Australia technical specialist John Hodgson said that the basic Live Drive was likely to include around 2 gigabytes of storage for free. Additional storage capacity will be available for purchase, he said, though pricing and final release dates haven't been announced.
So, who hasn't had an application or device driver lock up on their computer? Everyone knows that frustration.
To counter this, researchers at Microsoft have come up with a mathematical solution to lockups that examines your code and asks the same question: "Sarah Connor?"
The program from Microsoft Research is called the TERMINATOR software verification project. Instead of running for governor of California, this tool examines your software code and applies mathematical principles to all of the loops to insure they won't hang.
Microsoft's quest for a new trial in a patent-infringement case it lost has resulted in a bigger fine for the software
company.
A judge in a U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas Friday slapped an additional US$25 million in "enhanced damages" on Microsoft
for "litigation misconduct" in a patent case z4 Technologies Inc. brought against the software vendor and Autodesk Inc. in
September 2004.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis said that Microsoft tried to have z4's patents declared unenforceable even
as it continued to willfully infringe on those patents and withheld evidence of its actions. He ruled that this misconduct
merits adding to the amount of damages Microsoft must pay z4 in the case.