Microsoft plans to shut down the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic Web sites and stop scanning library and copyright books. Microsoft entered the book-scanning business in 2005 by contributing material to the Open Content Alliance, an industry group conceived by the Internet Archive and Yahoo. In 2006, it unveiled its competing MSN book search site.
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The Xbox 360 has managed to hit the 10 million sales mark in the US ahead of its competition even though Wii/PS3 dominates in global sales. Xbox 360 has sold over 16 platinum titles that have sold through 1 million units or more, Microsoft unveiled, including “Grand Theft Auto IV,” “Halo 3,” “Madden NFL 08,” “Gears of War,” “Guitar Hero II” and “Guitar Hero III.”
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Last December, Microsoft rolled out Service Pack 1 , a total of 320 MB. The update includes fixes for 455 issues throughout the entire Office suite. Microsoft is not going to push users for Automatic Update for at least three months. “We’ll give users a 30-day notice before throttling up [SP1 via] Automatic Update,” promised Shaffner, worldwide product manager for Office. The notice will be posted on Microsoft’s Web site and publicized elsewhere.
Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 contains changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. Windows Vista SP1 also addresses some management, deployment, and support challenges. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will download automatically to PCs that have the automatic update feature of the OS turned on, the company said.
Microsoft Corp. has dropped two strong hints in the past two days that the next version of its Windows operating system, Windows 7, will arrive in 2009, shaving up to a year off previous expectations. Windows 7 was previously known by the code name Vienna. A server variant, codenamed Windows Server 7, is also under development. Screenshots of early betas of Windows 7 are appearing.
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The Recently released documents from Microsoft discloses the fact that drivers for Nvidia PC graphics cards were the cause of roughly 29% of logged crashes in Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, Ars Technica reports.
Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang told employees in an e-mail that no decision has been made about Microsoft Corp’s bid to buy the company for $44.6 billion.