TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Word leaked out yesterday that Google was planning a new service for Gmail that essentially turned the popular Web-based email service into a rival to Facebook and Twitter. Now, we're finding out more details about the service, which has been dubbed Google Buzz.

"Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It's built right into Gmail, so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works," the company writes in a blog post today. "If you think about it, there's always been a big social network underlying Gmail."

Microsoft was unimpressed. “Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that," said Dharmesh Mehta, director of product management for Windows Live , in a statement. "Hotmail customers have benefitted from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

Three-and-a-half years after the suit was filed, a federal judge in Seattle has dismissed a case that alleged Microsoft's distribution of anti-piracy detection technology to Windows users through its Automatic Update system amounted to spreading spyware. Both sides requested the dismissal after a series of rulings against the plaintiffs -- including the rejection of their proposed class-action claims.

Although the outcome was technically a settlement, sources said Microsoft wasn't required to pay any money to the plaintiffs or their lawyers as part of the dismissal.

Photo: TMZ.com

Gossip site TMZ.com doesn't identify the man standing next to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in this photo from a Super Bowl skybox on Sunday in Florida, as the couple engaged in a very overt PDA in an attempt to dispel reports that they're splitting up. But pretty clearly it's Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder and Seattle Seahawks owner, who was separately reported to be hosting the couple on his yacht.

Microsoft's investigation of reports about errant Windows 7 battery messages has shown that the warnings are actually accurate, according to a blog post this afternoon by Steven Sinofsky, the Windows president. Sinofsky's post also explains why the alerts surprised some users: The messages result from a new feature in Windows 7 that alerts users when their batteries are performing at 40 percent or less of designed capacity.

"Essentially the battery was degrading but it was not evident to the customer until Windows 7 made this information available," Sinofsky writes in the post. "We recognize that this has the appearance of Windows 7 'causing' the change in performance, but in reality all Windows 7 did was report what was already the case."

A technology company has been named the best place to work by Fortune magazine, but it is not the usual suspects of Google, Cisco or Microsoft. Nope, it is perk-heavy SAS, which according Fortune offers employees child care, unlimited sick days and free access to a 66,000 square-foot fitness center. The Cary, North Carolina maker of business analytics software -- with revenue of $2.3 billion last year -- actually rose 20 spots to claim the honor.

So, where did the other tech stalwarts rank? Google -- with offices in Seattle and Kirkland -- remained steady in 4th place. Microsoft, meanwhile, tumbled from 38th to 51st place. Others on the list included NetApp (#7), Cisco (#16), Adobe (#42), Salesforce.com (#43) and Intel (#98). Noticeably absent from the list was Amazon.com, which is Seattle's second largest technology company.

Good news and bad news for Microsoft this morning in its Facebook relationship.

The Redmond company, which has a minority stake in the booming social networking site, said in a blog post that the companies are deepening their relationship in Internet search, working on new features and expanding into markets outside the United States. At the same time, the company says it will no longer be responsible for display ads on Facebook. Microsoft calls it a "mutual decision."

Microsoft has made some precious progress against Google in recent months, with its Bing search engine pushing the company's share of the U.S. market above 10 percent for the first time in more than two years.

But beneath the surface, those gains have not been cheap. The costs of boosting Bing’s market share have so far exceeded the resulting revenue — putting Microsoft’s online division into an even deeper financial hole. The situation underscores the challenge the Redmond company still faces in internet search, five years after spending billions of dollars to develop and launch its own search technology.

“It’s been a lot of money, a lot of noise, a long period of time and very little to show for it,” said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft research firm.

Those nostalgic stragglers still battling it out in multiplayer "Halo 2" campaigns on Xbox Live might want to put down the battle rifles and plasma pistols, and gaze one last time across the sands of Zanzibar.

That's because the war will soon be over, even if they aren't done.

Microsoft early this morning delivered some bad news to holdouts continuing to use its Xbox Live online gaming service to play games originally created for its first Xbox. As of April 15, the company is discontinuing Xbox Live for the original Xbox, according to the post by Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten (via VentureBeat). That means games originally made for the 9-year-old console will no longer work on Xbox Live, even if people are playing them on the newer Xbox 360.

To be clear, gamers should still be able to play original Xbox titles on the console offline. And for Halo fans, there's always the Live-enabled "Halo 3" and "Halo 3: ODST" on Xbox 360.

But particularly in the case of Halo 2, it's the end of an era.

A premature post on Microsoft's US Partner Community website today accidentally revealed, for a short time, the details of an upgrade promotion that the company plans to offer in advance of the upcoming Office 2010 release. Nice catch by Emil Protalinski of Ars Technica, who spotted the details in his RSS reader and, after seeing that the post had been taken down, found the remnants in Google's cache.

According to the post, customers who buy Office 2007 between March 5 and Sept. 30 will qualify for a free upgrade to Office 2010 after it's released in June 2010. They'll be able to upgrade via DVD or download, so long as they install and activate Office 2007 by Sept. 30 and request the Office 2010 upgrade by Oct. 31.

Michael Golden

L. Michael Golden, an education veteran who joined Microsoft in 2008 to lead its Education Products Group, left the company last month as the group was reorganized under the Microsoft Business Division, which makes Office and related products. A company spokesman confirmed the news this afternoon.

"The idea is to further the integration of education-specific solutions with Microsoft’s primary products – products already in use throughout many educational institutions today," said spokesman Lou Gellos in an email.

One of Microsoft's strategies in recent years has been to offer free access to its software and other technologies for selected audiences, such as early stage startups, aiming to encourage longer-term adoption of its products. That approach continued today as the company and the National Science Foundation announced a program to give selected scientific researchers free access to Microsoft's new Windows Azure cloud computing platform.

Dick Brass

Nearly a decade ago, the New York Times profiled a Microsoft executive named Dick Brass as an outsider looking to shake things up with the launch of the company's Tablet PC initiative. So how did that turn out? Brass, who left the company in 2004, tells the rest of the story in this NYT op-ed.

"Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation," Brass writes. "Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers."

Microsoft Research's prototype 'Peppermill' self-powered device. (Credit: Microsoft)

The days of scouring the couch cushions for batteries may be numbered. Researchers from Microsoft's lab in Cambridge, England, have created a media remote control called "Peppermill" that converts the twisting motion required to use it into the energy needed to power it. It's a research prototype, not a product, but it points to the larger possibilities in the area of "human-powered user interaction."

Peppermill is an example of "user interface devices that are able to source their power from the physical effort involved in interacting with them, and thereby operate without the need for batteries," write the Microsoft researchers, Nicolas Villar and Steve Hodges, in the paper they presented last week (PDF) at the international conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, or TIE 10.

Microsoft confirmed today that Mike Nash is leaving the company. The longtime Microsoft executive worked most recently as corporate vice president in charge of Windows 7 platform strategy.

But here's the interesting part: Nash is going to Amazon.com to work on the Kindle, as reported by Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet. We're hearing the same thing, independently, and we've contacted Amazon to find out more about Nash's new role.

Ed Fries, the Seattle video game pioneer who previously served as vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, has joined the board of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Canesta. The 45-year-old executive -- who currently leads "World of Warcraft" figurine startup FigurePrints -- said in a release that Canesta represents a "very unique opportunity" in 3-D sensing technologies.

"It will fundamentally change the relationship between computers and other consumer devices and the world around them," said Fries, who spent 18 years at Microsoft before leaving in 2004. That sounds an awful lot like Microsoft's highly-touted Project Natal, and based on the Canesta's product description there does appear to be some crossover.