"LG has become the latest in a long line of Android handset vendors to sign a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft. The agreement allows the South Korean conglomerate to use Microsoft patented technology in phones, tablets, and other consumer electronics running both Android and Chrome OS.

"It is official, Microsoft has confirmed that it doesn’t have plans to make any new Zune players. In an announcement on the Zune support site, Redmond said it won’t kill the service so if you by any chance have Zune HD player and live in US or Canada, the music subscription service will remain alive for the time being."

"In the face of mounting external pressure to begin paying bug bounties, Microsoft is instead launching a new program that will pay a $200,000 top prize to a security researcher who develops the most innovative defensive security technology. The program is designed to "inspire researchers to focus their talents on defensive technologies," the company said.

"In a nice break from Google‘s slick-but-cute explanatory videos and ads, someone at Microsoft has unleashed a rather vicious attack video targeting Gmail. The video shows Gmail Man, a delivery guy who has the creepy habit of scanning your mail for keywords and then showing you a related ad. You may be fine with that when you’re online, but when dramatized in real life, it might make you question the practice. If nothing else, the attack video makes a compelling case for going with Office 365 instead."

"Microsoft on Saturday disabled the search tool on its Safety & Security Center after attackers poisoned results with links to pornographic URLs. The company restored the website's search field early Monday afternoon ET, and later apologized to users for the gaffe."

"According to Microsoft's corporate vice president in charge of IE, Dean Hachamovitch said, the IE10 platform preview means that developers can start working with several "site-ready" HTML5 technologies. Like so many others, Microsoft uses HTML5 as an umbrella term that applies not-only to the still gestating HTML5 standard but also other standards such as JavaScript and CSS.

"Can Microsoft remotely disable third-party accessories from working with the Xbox 360 and get away with it?

The Redmond, Washington software- and console-maker did just that, and claims copyright law gave it the right. At issue is Microsoft’s 2009 remote disabling of Datel memory cards, which prompted an antitrust lawsuit that lives on today—litigation that has morphed into the latest test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"The next time a website says to download new software to view a movie or fix a problem, think twice. There's a pretty good chance that the program is malicious.

In fact, about one out of every 14 programs downloaded by Windows users turns out to be malicious, Microsoft said Tuesday. And even though Microsoft has a feature in its Internet Explorer browser designed to steer users away from unknown and potentially untrustworthy software, about 5 percent of users ignore the warnings and download malicious Trojan horse programs anyway."

"The US Department of Justice remedies supervision in the Microsoft antitrust case ends Thursday, closing the landmark case, which began in 1998. But the questions posed by trial federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's attempted remedy remain: Did tech innovation suffer over the last 10 years because Microsoft wasn't broken up?

"Microsoft is close to finalizing a deal to buy Skype for between $7 billion to $8 billion. The Wall Street Journal confirmed the news after we had first reported it yesterday. The announcement is likely to come out later today or tomorrow morning, according to several reports. Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft is said to be a big champion of the deal, the largest in the history of the company."