Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Tuesday it plans to introduce a computer mouse designed for PC gaming, in an effort to capture a growing segment of the computer peripheral equipment market. Microsoft's new SideWinder mouse , which will target hard-core computer video game fans, allows nearly 5,000 different adjustable settings, including weight, materials and touch . The new mouse comes with a small liquid crystal display between the thumb and index finger to keep track of game functions and settings . Executives at Microsoft said computer gaming is growing rapidly and sales of mice catered to video game use has increased at a double-digit pace. Rivals Logitech and Razer Group also manufacture computer mice for video games. The SideWinder mouse will sell for $79.95 when it becomes available in October. Microsoft's Sidewinder mouse in an undated handout photo. Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to introduce a computer mous...

Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of Vista is anticompetitive, lawyers involved in the case said on Tuesday. The settlement, reached in recent days by state prosecutors, the Justice Department and Microsoft, averted the prospect of litigation over a complaint by Google that Vista had been designed to frustrate computer users who want to use software other than Microsoft's to search through files on their hard drives. Google had made its complaint confidentially as part of the consent decree proceedings set up to monitor Microsoft for any anticompetitive conduct after it settled a landmark antitrust lawsuit five years ago that had been brought by the states and the Clinton administration. The US government and the states were planning to file a joint status report by midnight on Tuesday in the consent decree proceedings that outlined the changes Microsoft would be making to Vista. St...

In a bid to capitalize on the burgeoning online video market, the tech titan(Microsoft) is launching Silverlight, its new video-player software. The explosion of Web video has opened a new front in the battle between Adobe Systems (ADBE) and Microsoft (MSFT), each shooting for a bigger share of software that can create and serve up clips. For companies that publish online videos—and the advertisers who sponsor them—the result could be new technology that squelches piracy, cuts download times, and lets consumers watch programs even when they're offline. Microsoft and Adobe will both unveil new video-playing software at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas on Apr. 16. Both companies are aiming to capitalize on a growing market for Internet video ads, expected to grow from $1.5 billion market in 2007 to $4.2 billion in 2011, according to market researcher Yankee Group. Dueling Debuts Adobe's Flash Player, installed on more than 700 million PCs, has beco...

With the launch of a new online application unveiled by Microsoft, users will be able to “fly” over cities and in between buildings just like they do in virtual reality environments. Known as Virtual Earth 3D, this new technology lets users view a three-dimensional map of, initially, 15 American cities when they use “Live Search”, Newsweek magazine reported in its latest issue. With the upgraded Virtual Earth 3D, Microsoft has edged ahead of Google in at least one aspect of the race to bring immersive maps to the Internet: it has added a missing piece — photorealistic buildings that sprout from the ground and evoke the lifelike but illusory world of The Matrix, the magazine said. For now, it’s merely a novel way to spend some time. But if Microsoft continues to add new cities and improves an already expensive project, the 3D Web could become a carbon copy of the real world and a powerful new platform on which to blend advertising, social networks, search and e-commerce, the report sai...

Robert Levine: Owners of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console will soon be able to watch sci-fi epics as well as play them. Microsoft said it would offer movies and episodes of television shows for downloading through its Xbox Live online service in the US from November 22. With the new offerings, Microsoft is joining cable giants and Internet start-ups on the long list of companies hoping to profit from video downloading. But Internetbased services have had trouble getting traction because it can be complex to send a downloaded film to a television screen and frustrating to watch it on the small screen of a computer. Owners of the Xbox have already connected it to a TV and, in most cases, the Net. “What makes this big is that there’s no PC in the middle,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group. Microsoft has negotiated the rights to rent or sell more than 1,000 hours of material from CBS, MTV, Paramount, Warner Bros and Turner Broadcasting. The video store will work much li...