Microsoft is working on a unified search user interface designed to kill Google Desktop and thwart Google’s business software services. Code-named Casino and referred to as OneView, the new application provides one user interface for searching across the desktop, intranets and the Web, according to Microsoft’s Web site. The intent is to crush Google’s efforts […]

While Microsoft’s Windows operating system and software is popular worldwide, its relatively high price puts it out of the financial reach of many in the developing world. As a result, pirated copies of Windows and Office are endemic in some parts of the world, with the percentage of PCs running pirated software approaching 90 percent […]

Vienna is the old code name. According to Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of development with Microsoft’s Windows Core Operating System Division, Microsoft insiders are not allowed to use the new name publicly. But this is Microsoft not Apple so expect it to leak out sometime soon. Another piece of rhetoric is that the new […]

Powerset, a San Francisco-based start-up, said it has signed an exclusive, open-ended license to use Internet search technology touted as a potential challenger to Google Inc. The 40-employee start-up based in San Francisco licensed the technology from the developer, Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center. Financial terms of the arrangement weren’t disclosed. Powerset will start […]

Multinational computer technology corporation IBM currently has a prototype software that will give birth to future speech-to-speech translation engines. Dubbed as MASTOR, Multilingual Automatic Speech-to-Speech Technology aims to provide users speech translations in real time. Here’s how the software works: With the help of MASTOR, the words spoken in a foreign language by someone on […]

After months of planning to kill off the Hotmail name, Microsoft has decided to keep the venerable brand, as it works to overhaul its free Web e-mail service. Microsoft said that the revamped service, still in beta testing phase, is being renamed “Windows Live Hotmail” rather than the originally planned “Windows Live Mail.” In a […]

A hacker claims to have written code to break Windows Vista encryption within hours of the operating system’s consumer launch. Canadian programmer and security researcher, Alex Ionescu claims on his blog that he’s managed to unlock Vista’s Protected Media Path (PMP) encryption feature to enable high-def DVDs to be copied. Microsoft’s system is designed to […]

Sony BMG Music Entertainment has agreed to pay consumers up to $150 each toward the cost of repairs of their computer systems damaged by using the company’s music CDs that came embedded with a copyright protection software. These CDs, when played by consumers, installed the DRM software on their computers without their knowledge, restricting the […]

In 2004, the European Commission found that Microsoft pushed out RealNetworks and other makers of audio and video streaming software and made Windows deliberately incompatible with rivals’ server software. Now, IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Corel, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat, Linspire and Opera are filing a complaint with the European Commission regarding Vista. The group […]

At Midem in Cannes, France, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is introducing a new mp3 surround streaming module that allows manufacturers to build web radios featuring true 5.1 surround sound. The first radio station streaming a multi-channel music program using mp3 surround is the Erlangen based campus radio bit eXpress. At Midem, Fraunhofer IIS […]

WIBU-Systems USA, a German firm headquartered in Seattle, says it’ll pay that much to anyone who can strip its digital restrictions management software from a “protected” application. And if somebody can break the security software, maybe they’ll get a job, InformationWeek has the company saying. “If you’ve produced software that will tell an oil company […]

It was just a week ago that Microsoft’s Jim Allchin was talking about Windows Vista security and how the operating system would fend off attacks from malicious code and hackers. Allchin made no mention, however, of the recent successful attempts at cracking Windows Vista’s activation scheme. Earlier this month, pirates found a way to spoof […]

Despite its best efforts, Microsoft’s activation server gets cracked. Despite all the talk surrounding its security and beefed up anti-piracy measures we all knew that it wouldn’t take long for hackers to take a stab at Vista’s activation scheme. Cracked copies of Windows Vista started flooding the internet soon after the operating system was released […]

Even though an update was released earlier this week, Mozilla’s Firefox browser remains plagued by 20 bugs when run in Windows Vista. According to the release notes of Firefox 2.0.0.1, the edition issued Tuesday, the browser hasn’t yet been given the all-clear for Vista. Among problems still on the list: Firefox cannot be set as […]

HD DVDs and Blu-Ray discs came to market with a digital rights management (DRM) content encryption system called Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Supposedly, AACS was intended to permit greater flexibility than conventional DVD’s Content Scrambling System (CSS) DRM, since it was touted as allowing purchasers, say, to load DVDs onto their media servers or […]