A report in the New York Times spotlights Microsoft's role in raids carried out by the Russian government against dissenting advocacy groups, under the guise of searching for pirated software. Presented with the findings, the company told the newspaper that it would improve oversight of its legal affairs in the country. Update, Monday morning: Microsoft vows inquiry and announces unilateral NGO software license in response to the NYT story.

A Microsoft job posting provides a glimpse of the company's plans for "the next generation of portable entertainment and communication devices" -- built by the team that made the Zune HD, but possibly creating closer ties to the Windows Phone platform, reports WMPowerUser.com.

Microsoft's "Windows Phone Pride" Parade from Friday is getting lots of attention, and one Microsoft employee took pictures of the whole thing -- with an HTC EVO 4G running Google's Android operating system, reports TechCrunch. Ouch. Hey, at least they're making themselves familiar with the competition.

Gizmodo has an interesting post on the "instant" Live Search interface created a year ago by blogger Long Zheng, in his spare time -- showing how Bing was in a position to beat Google Instant to the punch, but didn't.