Soon Your Xbox 360 May Replace Your Cable TV Box [Microsoft]

Microsoft is supposedly ready to announce a new Xbox 360 feature that'll let you watch lots of TV on your Xbox 360, according to a report from AllThingsD.

It's not the cord cutting-friendly service that we had hoped for as Microsoft is working closely with cable providers. This means you may have access to an excellent library of current TV shows and movies, but you will need a cable subscription to enjoy it. [AllThingsD]

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Like HTC, Samsung Now Pays Microsoft to Put Android On Its Phones [Patents]

Samsung now pays Microsoft for the privilege of selling Android phones. Of course, it's being called a "partnership." And yes, we've seen this before: Microsoft also strong armed HTC into giving them a cut of the profits for every Android device sold.

Microsoft, sitting on a stack of patents they believe have been infringed upon by Google's Android platform, has bullied yet another handset manufacturer into handing cash over. In fact, between HTC and Samsung, they're going to make more money off Android than they do Windows Phone 7. And Google isn't happy about that, calling this move extortion and issuing the following statement to TechCrunch:

"This is the same tactic we've seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others' achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners."

Of course, Microsoft is also trying to pull the same maneuver on the (now) Google-owned Motorola, but Moto keeps wriggling out of that conflict. If Motorola, who has plenty of patents of their own (not to mention Google's), doesn't budge, what happens next? Will there be a winner takes all patent war? Then again Samsung sells more Android devices than anyone, and they didn't want to mess with Microsoft, so it's anyone's guess what Moto will do. [Microsoft, TechCrunch, AllThingsD]

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Microsoft Just Sorta Ruined Zune Pass [Zune]

Hoping to remind everyone that they have a subscription service just like Spotify and Rdio, Microsoft's updated their Zune Pass subscription model. Too bad they destroyed the best thing about it.

Microsoft lowered the price of the Zune Music Pass from $14.99 to $9.99. Which is great! Cheaper is better.The price is more inline with the current offerings on the market from Rdio, Mog, Rhapsody, and Spotify. And, in addition to music, Zune Music Pass holders will have access to unlimited streaming music videos. Plus, you can sync songs to up to 4 different Zune devices. Also great!

Now for the terrible part. ZunePass is losing its most awesome feature, the one thing that differentiated it from every other subscription service: You'll no longer be able to download and own 10 free songs a month—which was effectively like buying 10 songs a month getting a subscription for $5.

The new subscriptions start on October 3, but current pass holders can keep their $14.99 subscriptions and keep on jamming on 10 free downloads a month. [Zune Insider]

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Has Steve Ballmer Lost The Support Of Microsoft Employees? [Microsoft]

An unhappy side of Microsoft's corporate environment was potentially exposed in the comments of a blog post written by an unnamed employee. The post details the company's annual meeting and while the content is tame, some of the feedback is scathing.

Discovered by Seattle Pi, the comments suggest people were leaving the meeting in droves, unhappy with what they heard. Here are a few of the more "interesting" comments:

"What a sad spectacle. While SteveB was yacking away, people were leaving in droves. Back in the good old days when BillG spoke, EVERYONE listened."

"Steve, you've lost the support of your employees – when will you realize that you're holding this once great company back? Oh and BTW, you can take LB (HR chief Lisa Brummel) and KT (COO Kevin Turner) with you too. They like the taste of your Kool Aid…"

"Is Win 8 tablet all we have left to be excited about? Has the morale across the company slumped so much that 20,000 of us together can't even generate a decent applause? Please someone tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I've just got a bad attitude and I completely misread the meeting."

You can head over to Seattle Pi and the original blog post for the rest of the conversation. To be fair, these comments are only from a handful of people and could be from trolls wanting to stir things up, but as WinRumors points out, there have been other signs Microsoft may be due for a leadership change. [Mini-Microsoft via SeattlePi and WinRumors]

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How Microsoft and Kapersky Labs Neutralized a Spam Botnet [Security]

Botnets are feared not only for what they can do, but also for their resiliant nature (they're virtually impossible to completely disband). Still, Microsoft and Kapersky Labs teamed up recently to foil a particularly malevolent botnet called Kelihos. Here's how.

Kelihos is a botnet that, at its peak, was sending 4 billion spam messages a day. According to the security blog ThreatPost, the botnet wasn't so much shut down as it was "sinkholed." The botnet is still operational, but it's 100% controlled by Kapersky Labs (who, by the way, failed to receive recognition from Microsoft for their efforts). Botnets of course, function by infecting computers of random people with internet connections, then using those compromised machines to do their evil bidding over a private peer-to-peer network. Kapersky gained control of the botnet by getting the machines to talk to their servers more than the actual botnet servers.

This Monday, we started to propagate a special peer address. Very soon, this address became the most prevalent one in the botnet, resulting in the bots talking to our machine, and to our machine only. Experts call such an action sinkholing – bots communicate with a sinkhole instead of its real controllers. At the same time, we distributed a specially crafted list of job servers to replace the original one with the addresses mentioned before and prevent the bots from requesting commands. From this point on, the botnet could not be commanded anymore.

But here's the tricky part: since Kapersky can't shut down each individual infected computer, they can't shutdown the botnet. They think they could have the botnet push an update to every machine that would remove the infection and shutdown the network, but they say such a move is quite illegal. Oh well! [ThreatPost]

Image Credit: James Cridland/(CC BY 2.0)

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Microsoft Touch Mouse Lightning Review: It's Not Magic [Mice]

Apple's Magic Mouse is two years old. It attempted to merge two interfaces—touch and mousing—in a meaningful way by hybridizing a capacitive touch surface and a mouse. It's pretty good. Microsoft's Touch Mouse is like that, but for Windows 7. And actually designed for human hands to hold it.

Well, the ergonomics. It's why Microsoft hardware is renowned. They make comfortable stuff. I typically dislike ambidextrous mice. Not this one. Also, the Touch Mouse's custom software delivers a true Expose-type feature to Windows 7 that reveals all over your open windows with a swooshy animation. It's so good it should just be built into Windows 7 by default, really.

Oh, how to put this delicately: It doesn't work? One-finger scrolling is kind of like spinning The Big Wheel on the Price Is Right—you never know where it's going to stop. The back and forward thumb gestures are truly awkward, and only work about half the time. It misinterprets touches, often, and with a vengeance. But the real killer? Right-click only works about 60-70 percent of the time. And because I could never trust the mouse to do what I needed it to, I never felt super comfortable holding it, since I was always paranoid I'd set off a horrible chain reaction of gestures that would like restart the sun or something.

Not unless there's a mega firmware update that magically makes it awesome. The prototype I saw over a year ago had tons of promise, and it could be killer mouse, even at $60. If, you know, it worked.

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AppleInsider Rumor Purports Apple iCloud Runs on Microsoft, Amazon Servers [Blip]

The enemy of my enemy is my data center server provider, or something. Anyway, rumor says Apple is using Microsoft and Amazon servers to power iCloud. How cozy! [AppleInsider]

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Lawsuit Claims Microsoft Is Tracking Every Windows Phone Even if You Opt Out [Microsoft]

Microsoft is tracking your Windows Phone, and there's nothing you can do about it. A lawsuit filed in Seattle is claiming that Windows Phone's camera app tracks your location and sends it to Microsoft, even if you opt out. We contacted Microsoft and they refused to comment.

Earlier this year, when the Internet was losing its mind about Apple storing your location data on a hidden file on the iPhone 4, Microsoft told us that it only stores your last known location as a single data point that it erases as soon as it stores a new one. Which is probably true! But tracking your users after they've specifically opted out of the service is pretty serious, and we're still waiting on a straight answer from Microsoft on this mess. [Reuters via BGR]

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