Playing a little bit of catch-up to rival Google, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Navic Networks on Wednesday, giving it a foothold in the television advertising business.
The interactive TV advertising market has been considered a “new and burgeoning” industry for well over a decade now, and for perhaps all of that time, Microsoft has been [...]

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It failed to acquire Yahoo’s search business — or at least that’s what Yahoo has said. So now Microsoft has to rely on its own resources to come up with a plan for moving forward in search; and to do that, it’s setting up a second laboratory.
This morning, Microsoft publicly announced it will be opening [...]

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Unsold video advertising at stake

Microsoft may have a market cap of over $268 billion, but the corporation isn’t an expert in every field. So, whenever Microsoft isn’t able to sell video ad inventory, a new agreement will have its friend YuMe step in to handle the task.

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Acquisition rumors not that crazy

Companies generally don’t comment on rumor or speculation—that’s the blogosphere/news media’s job. The speculation du jour, which seems very likely born of non-buyer’s remorse, is that Microsoft is eyeing—or should eye—an acquisition of eBay or, at least, PayPal and/or Skype

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The ER doctor stares at the unconscious stranger on his table. He has never seen this patient. He has never seen this patient’s records.
He cannot know the patient is allergic to the medicine he’s about to inject.
This scenario, more than any other, illustrates why individuals should consider using [...]

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A New York Times article purporting that Microsoft is working with NBC Universal to create a “copyright cop” — or anti-piracy filter — for the Zune that will prevent playback of unauthorized videos, was refuted by Microsoft today.
In the article which appeared on a Times blog, Saul Hansell, a Times reporter, quotes J.B. Perrette, president [...]

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Despite reports that a Blu-ray Xbox 360 is in the works from an ASUS subsidiary, Microsoft has once again moved to deny the rumors.
Microsoft had no comment when the reports hit last week, but now an official has sent an email to the popular gaming website GamePro denying the reports.
“As we have stated, we have [...]

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Alcatel-Lucent has begun court proceedings for its lawsuit against Microsoft, complaining that Microsoft’s Xbox game systems violates one of the company’s 1993 patents “relating to the code for generating video frames.”
The partnership says it plans to demand $1.50 USD for “every alleged misuse of the patent” but it is not clear what is considered a [...]

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After having exited the travel business once before by spinning off Expedia, the Redmond company appears to stepping back in by scooping up a Washington-based startup.
Farecast is not exactly like Expedia, or other travel sites for that matter. Instead it essentially provides forecasts of whether fares would rise or fall on a specific route. From [...]

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Hackers continue trying to exploit a patched vulnerability in Microsoft’s Graphic Display Interface (GDI), researchers said this week.
Craig Schmugar, threat researcher at McAfee, reported that the first exploit was discovered on Friday, three days after the issue was patched by bulletin MS08-021.
“One method the bad guys use is to take the patch and reverse engineer [...]

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