Consumer software and hardware

Chronicling our lives has been part of our culture for as long as we have kept personal diaries. Today, technology offers many different ways of recording our thoughts and feelings, which makes the task far easier.

Ten years ago, Gordon Bell, a principal researcher at Microsoft, set out to chronicle his life by recording everything that happened to him. Visit him in his office and you will face microphones and video cameras. As he travels, he goes "laden down with stuff."

The Microsoft-funded project is still going, and Bell sees it as "one of the most important … Read more

Microsoft, not necessarily known for being the company for hopeless romantics, is home to at least one.

In a posting on the Channel 10 developer site, Laura Foy put together a list of Redmond products that show that "Microsoft is a super romantic love machine of a company."

In the somewhat tongue-in-cheek video, Foy shows how the company's Web services, in particular, can keep February 14 from being a bust.

"Are you a bit of mess when it comes to Valentine's Day?" Foy asks in the text that accompanies her video. "Are you … Read more

With the PC market tanking along with the rest of the economy, Microsoft is seen as unlikely to be able to live up to the financial forecast it issued in October.

The company is set to release its quarterly earnings after the markets close on Thursday.

In a further sign of just how rough the economy is, Microsoft is also expected to announce shortly its plans for a significant, companywide layoffs. Although Microsoft has cut jobs in a particular unit or location in the past, it has managed to navigate through all past downturns without having to resort to such … Read more

Microsoft has been in the software game long enough to know that when you're announcing a release as big as an operating system to millions of itchy-fingered techies, you release it when you say you will and you have the foresight to get your servers in a row.

Yet, the general release of the much-anticipated Windows 7 beta is overdue by hours, Microsoft having first posted the files late, and then pulled them when servers buckled under the traffic. What's left now is a sort-of apologetic, but mostly noncommittal notice that there's no estimated arrival time for … Read more

Microsoft's Windows Web site will be the place to go to get the Windows 7 beta later on Friday. At the moment though, many users are encountering just error messages when they try to reach the site.

This was the message I got--"HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable." Is anyone out there getting through?

I have some calls in on this and will let you know what I hear back.

Microsoft's Bill Veghte said the company is aiming to have several million testers for the beta version. Microsoft has talked about having just a … Read more

Microsoft Research on Thursday is releasing software that gives musicians, both casual and professional, a new way to speed up song development. Called Songsmith, the $29.99 application creates musical accompaniment based on whatever is sung into the computer's microphone.

In order to do this, the software processes the pitch and tone of what's recorded and lets users hear how it might sound if they had a little backup in the form of a virtual piano, drums, and keyboard. Microsoft is expecting them to use the new track either as inspiration for further song development or as a … Read more

Eleven counterfeiters have been given jail sentences of between one and a half and six and a half years by a Chinese court after being found guilty of producing fake Microsoft software.

The "ringleaders of the world's largest software-counterfeiting syndicate," as Microsoft described them in a statement on Wednesday, were sentenced on New Year's Eve. According to Microsoft, theirs were the longest sentences given for this type of crime in China's history.

The syndicate was charged with making and distributing more than $2 billion worth of fake Microsoft software, which had ended up all over … Read more

A leap-year issue with Microsoft's Zune music player is still leaving many users cold, despite the company's reassurance that all would be well by sometime on New Year's Day.

Postings on Zune message boards Thursday morning, as people tried out Microsoft's recommendations and fellow Zune users' suggestions, ranged from the hopeful...

"The wipe process should only take a minute or two. If it is hanging on this screen, disconnect it from power, let the battery drain, and then reconnect it to start the device again," user Raw Deluxe wrote on Zune Forums.

...to the … Read more

Looks like the Midwest isn't the only thing that's freezing up this holiday season: many people are reporting that their 30GB Zunes are spontaneously going on the fritz as well.

The symptom is being reported widely on discussion boards about Microsoft's music player, including Zune.net, Zune User Community Forums, and ZuneScene. With the problem, people's Zunes reboot but freeze when the startup status bar reaches 100 percent.

Some users reported the problem happened at exactly midnight PST, at the very beginning of the last day of the year. That timing led some wags to call the problem Z2K after the Y2K problem that was widely feared to cripple the computing industry when computer clocks moved from 1999 to 2000.

"It reset itself. I don't know why," said one owner who posted an account of his Zune problem on YouTube after reporting it on the Zune.net forum.

Microsoft didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning, but issued a statement later in the day (see below).

"I hate to say it but I believe this is the end of the road for the Zune and I. Just as I was happy with the last update and things were fine, we get another major meltdown. I was always supportive and had good things to say about my Zune to those that would ask, however this is the nail in the coffin," griped user Redinight on a ZuneScene discussion board. "I can't take it anymore. I can't sit here all the time and wonder what Microsoft does right or wrong anymore, I just want to get up and go listen to my music. Listening to music is about the last thing I do with my Zune. I always have to reinstall, download new firmware, or wait for the slow software to catch up. Now this? I want to throw it away and never look back." … Read more