Keyspan announced its new Presentation Remote Pro is now shipping. The Presentation Remote Pro is a wireless remote control that works with Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote presentation software. With its laser pointer, mouse and audio controls, 100+ ft range and low MSRP of $79, the Presentation Remote Pro is the ideal tool for every public speaker and presenter in commerce or education as its range covers large meeting rooms and lecture halls.

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Password Magic for Windows PC users securely stores logins, passwords and usernames as well as confidential information such as bank and credit card details within an encrypted database and automatically retrieves these details to fill out web order forms or complete web logins. Password Magic may be used to securely access on-line banking, credit card accounts and on-line shopping or travel arrangements; in fact anything that needs a password or an on-line login routine can be accessed with just a simple click of the mouse.

The one-year anniversary of the Innovative Communications Alliance between Microsoft and Nortel Networks on July 16 will be a short-lived celebration, as both vendors quickly go back to work on further extensions to their VOIP-focused partnership.

Both vendors claim that in a year’s time, the joint Unified Communications initiative has resulted in 430,000 individual end-user licenses for joint offerings from over 100 customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

At the same time, "Nortel now has more people trained on (Office Communications Server) than any other channel partner in the world," and it set a speed record for becoming a Microsoft Gold Certified partner in under six months, said Greg St. James, senior director of the Nortel Alliance at Microsoft.

Weeks before he announced an "unacceptable number of repairs" to the Xbox 360, the Microsoft executive in charge of the video game console sold US$6.15 million worth of company stock, or about 20 percent of his holdings.

According to regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, sold 200,000 shares in four transactions between May 3 and May 30. The total take: more than $6.1 million.

On July 5, Bach was one of two Microsoft executives who spelled out the problems with the Xbox 360 to financial analysts and reporters. The game machine’s design, Bach said, was defective. "Over the past couple of months, the number of repairs for the Xbox 360 console have been unacceptable to us," he said during a telephone conference call.

To handle the influx of customer complaints, Microsoft said it was immediately extending the Xbox 360’s warranty from one to three years for any problem diagnosed with the three flashing lights error message, dubbed the "red ring of death" by users. To pay for the anticipated repairs, and to evaluate and fix systems still in inventory, Microsoft will take a charge of more than $1 billion against earnings for the quarter that ended June 30.

Microsoft released Windows Home Server to manufacturing, hitting the final milestone for software that will power several turnkey home servers that OEMs will put on the market in late September and early October.

The move to RTM (release to manufacturing) means that Microsoft has wrapped up WHS and handed it off to its internal distribution teams and hardware partners, said Joel Sider, senior product manager. Those OEM partners grew by two as Iomega and Fujitsu-Siemens Computers were added to a list that already included Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, LaCie, and Medion. Details on the Fujitsu-Siemens and Iomega systems were scanty, but the former will be a 500GB product with gigabit Ethernet, while the latter will contain up to four hot-swappable drives.

Italy has become the latest country to clamp down on phishing, with authorities there arresting 26 people for an alleged scam to swindle bank customers.

According to a statement by one of those arrested, the scam involved sending fraudulent emails that appeared to come from Poste Italiane, the country’s postal operator, which also offers bank accounts, insurance and loans, according to a news release (in Italian) from the Guardia di Finanza, which handles financial crimes.

The emails urged victims to hand over sensitive financial information, which was then used to draw money from their accounts, the finance authority said. Eighteen of those arrested are Italian citizens, with the remainder from Eastern European countries.

Microsoft and Red Hat are no closer to a deal involving intellectual property cooperation, Microsoft has confirmed.

"Red Hat and Microsoft have previously had conversations about interoperability, but none of our recent conversations have included discussions about intellectual property cooperation," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s vice president of intellectual property and licensing, told eWEEK.

This effectively puts to rest–for now–the speculation that the rival operating system vendors might actually be talking about a deal that includes some kind of intellectual property provision and/or patent covenant.

Nearly six months after it launched, gripes over what doesn’t work with Vista continue, eclipsing positive buzz over the program’s improved desktop search, graphics and security.

With Vista now shipping on most new computers, it’s all but guaranteed to become the world’s dominant PC operating system–eventually. For now, some users are either learning to live with workarounds or sticking with Vista’s predecessor, Windows XP.

Industry analysts say Vista adoption is plodding along as expected, with most consumers and businesses switching over as they replace old hardware with new. IDC analyst Al Gillen said he expects Vista will be installed on the vast majority of computers in about five years, the time it took for XP to reach 84 percent of PCs.

A couple who authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect.

The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care.

The Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing "Dungeons & Dragons" series, to give their children proper care.

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