At business meetings the world over, PowerPoint-style presentations are often met with yawns and glazed eyes. But at one of the world’s top business schools, such slide shows are now an entrance requirement. In a first, the University of Chicago will begin requiring prospective students to submit four pages of PowerPoint-like slides with their applications this fall.

Microsoft is making a tech-demo version of its upcoming DirectX 10.1 available via download, including a version of XAudio2, the company’s cross-platform replacement for DirectSound.

Users can try out both via the 468MB version of the August 2007 DirectX SDK. There’s a catch, though: the August 2007 Direct3D 10.1 Tech Preview requires the Windows Vista SP1 Beta which will be available to MSDN subscribers once it is publicly released.

The most influential technology product of the past 25 years is Microsoft’s oft-derided Web browser, Internet Explorer, according to a survey of IT professionals.

The survey was carried out by the Computing Technology Industry Association, a 25-year-old trade body that certifies IT professionals and that is funded by major vendors, including Microsoft. Out of the top five products in the poll, only one–the iPod–is not a Microsoft product.

SPAMfighter ApS has recently released a new version of the antivirus program, VIRUSfighter with the same capabilities but now compatible with Windows Vista operating system in order to give users the best antivirus program for their Vista-based PCs. VIRUSfighter offers a free 30-day trial for all computer systems and now also a special version exclusive for Windows Vista.

ANIXIS announced the release of Password Policy Enforcer 5.0, an application that enhances the security of Windows Server operating systems. PPE 5.0 has six new password policy rules, improved support for Windows Vista, and new password expiry options to simplify the introduction of new password policies.

The rudimentary password policy features in Windows limit administrators to a single domain password policy with an on/off complexity option. Microsoft includes a programmer’s interface to add new password policy rules, but a solid understanding of Windows system programming is needed to make use of it. ANIXIS Password Policy Enforcer allows administrators to enforce granular password policies without programming.

Amongst the six new password policy rules in PPE 5.0 is a keyboard pattern rule, a first for the Windows platform. It detects simple keyboard patterns like QWERTY, and also more complex patterns like QAZXCV and QAWSDF. Pattern matching parameters are configurable, allowing administrators to strike a balance between security and usability.

Microsoft is seeking to settle its long-running patent suit with Eolas Technologies through negotiations rather than heading back to the courtroom.

The company confirmed Tuesday that itis in "active discussions" with Eolas to settle a patent suit over Internet Explorer that was first filed in 1999.

Yahoo is urging users of Yahoo Widgets to upgrade to address a vulnerability hackers can exploit remotely to take control of a compromised system.

According to researchers at the French Security Incident Response Team, the issue is caused by a buffer overflow error in the "YDPCTL.YDPControl.1" (YDPCTL.dll) ActiveX control when processing malformed arguments passed to the "GetComponentVersion()" method. The flaw can be exploited by tricking a user into visiting a specially crafted Web page and could result in a denial-of-service attack or the takeover of an affected system.

Yahoo Widgets versions prior to 4.0.5 are affected by the flaw. The vulnerability was initially reported by the security firm Secunia, in Copenhagen, which rated it highly critical.

Researchers at Core Security Technologies have donned their black hats and are preparing a presentation about a new database attack vector that relies solely on the inherent characteristics of the indexing algorithms.

The attack, which will be demonstrated Aug. 1 against the MySQL database engine at Black Hat USA in Las Vegas, affects database management systems using BTREE, the popular database indexing algorithm and data structure. Traditionally, database security breaches are mostly due to the abuse of wrongly configured authorization and actual control permissions or the exploitation of bugs in front-end Web applications through SQL injection, said Core Security Chief Technology Officer Ivan Arce.

The new PDF Annotator revolutionizes the way users in business, educational, or home settings deal with their PDF documents. Now it’s possible to insert comments on PDF documents from any PC. Text boxes, highlighting, drawings and images–all are easy to add to any PDF document with PDF Annotator.

Microsoft is looking to get more of its technology certified as an industry standard and has submitted its HD Photo technology to the Joint Photographic Expert Group for a decision in that regard.

JPEG, a working group of the International Organization for Standardization, has decided to introduce a new work item for the standardization of Microsoft’s HD Photo file format, tentatively titled "JPEG XR"; formal balloting of this work item is being submitted to the JPEG national delegations for approval.

The ballot deadline for this new project is early October 2007, with the finalization and publication of the completed standard, if approved, expected to take up to a year after that.

The HD Photo technology was incubated in Microsoft Research some five years ago, where it was known as photon and developed by the Core Media Processing Team, before becoming part of the Windows Media family and being renamed Windows Media Photo.