Microsoft, hoping to take a bite out of Apple Computer’s highly popular online music service, is gearing up to launch its own website for selling songs over the internet. With Thursday’s planned debut, the software maker will become the latest competitor in a market experts say is still in its infancy — but one that is expected to grow considerably more popular in the coming years.
Microsoft is close to releasing the biggest update ever for the Windows operating system, aiming to plug holes that have led to massive security problems for computer users the world over. Microsoft senior product manager Matt Pilla said late on Wednesday that it is expected to release the update for Windows XP, called Service Pack 2, ”in the coming days”.
Microsoft may be best known for its dominant Windows product, but on Thursday Bill Gates touted software that’s far afield from your basic operating system. How about software that can recognise a picture of a bar code taken with your cell phone, and provide you with product information?
Microsoft is already known for its aggressive efforts to extend its global reach. Now, it’s taking those efforts one step further. The latest versions of the company’s dominant Windows operating system and Office software will soon be available in languages ranging from Ethiopia’s Amharic to Inuktitut of the Arctic’s Inuit.
As Lyndsay Williams trudged along snow-covered paths and passed by shop windows one recent day in Cambridge, England, so too did her SenseCam — automatically snapping hundreds of photos along the way. Later that day, Williams could have used those pictures to figure out where she’d left her car keys, or to show a friend the sweater she saw in a window.
In the fall of 2002, Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates stood on stage at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre, home to the Academy Awards, and pronounced this ”the digital decade”. Eighteen months later, Gates’s endeavour could be facing a big roadblock.