Microsoft launched a redesigned MSN portal optimized for mobile phones on Sunday, stepping up its offering at a time when more powerful devices increase the demand for richer content on handsets.

U.S. mobile Internet use still represents only a fraction of computer-based Web usage, but technology heavyweights like Microsoft see increasingly powerful mobile phones and faster networks opening the door for new services and content.

Microsoft agreed to make changes to the desktop search feature in Windows Vista in an effort to assuage Google and head off a further antitrust battle with U.S. regulators.

In a filing made jointly with the Justice Department on Tuesday night, Microsoft said it would change the search feature as part of the first service pack to Windows Vista. In the filing, Microsoft talked for the first time about when that service pack would arrive, saying a beta version will come by the end of the year.

Under the agreement, Microsoft will create a mechanism whereby both computer makers and individuals will be able to choose a default desktop search program, much as they can choose a rival browser or media player, even though those technologies are built into Windows.

"Blog," "netiquette," "cookie," and "wiki" have been voted among the most irritating words spawned by the Internet, according to the results of a poll published Thursday.

Topping the list of words most likely to make Web users "wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard" was folksonomy, a term for a Web classification system.

"Blogosphere", the collective name for blogs or online journals, was second; "blog" itself was third; "netiquette", or Internet etiquette, came fourth and "blook", a book based on a blog, was fifth.

damaka, a fast-growing communications and collaboration software company, has launched an array of collaborative features that complements its existing feature-rich suite. damaka raises the bar of collaborative communications by enabling industry’s first SIP based P2P Application Sharing, File Sharing and Album Sharing besides Ad hoc Conferencing, Video Profiles and Calendar. This positions damaka’s Personal Softswitch product as an enterprise class feature-rich collaboration suite maintaining its lead in the marketplace.

Unlike a costly traditional client server based offering in the market for Application Sharing, damaka provides corporate users a very cost effective alternative solution with all its sharing and collaborative features that are based on direct peering technology with complete encryption. Now, corporate users can share any of their documents like Powerpoint presentation, Excel spreadsheet, etc. with their colleagues at no extra cost.

PrivacyView Software announced the release of its Anonymous Proxy Server, Private Proxy. With the release of Private Proxy, users get the best of both worlds from PrivacyView Software, an anonymous proxy that protects their IP address and Internet communication’s along with an anonymous surfing tool that enables them to keep all local browser traces and personal files safe and secure from others who have access to their computer.

Microsoft’s Windows Vista team is eating crow after flip-flopping on its on-again, off-again decision to allow cheaper versions of Vista to be used in virtualized machines.

The company was all set to announce June 20 that the lower-cost Vista Home Basic ($199) and Vista Home Premium ($249) versions could be used in virtual machines, and that it had lifted its prohibition on the use of information rights management, digital rights management and its BitLocker data encryption service in a virtual machine.

Researchers at Trend Micro are reporting that as many as 10,000 Web sites have been infected with malicious code that redirects unsuspecting users to a server booby-trapped with drive-by exploits–part of a wave of attacks originating in Italy and now spreading through Europe.

Dubbed the "Italian Job" by Trend Micro, the attack was first uncovered June 15. Legitimate sites were hacked to include a malicious iFrames tag redirecting visitors to servers armed with a tool called MPack, an exploit tool that can target security holes in multiple products.

Email records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday.

The Bush administration may have committed "extensive" violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, said the committee’s Democratic chairman, adding that the panel will deepen its probe into the use of political email accounts.

You may not know that your computer is sending spam, being used as a pawn in coordinated Internet attacks, hosting illegal files, or otherwise part of the malware-distribution network known as the zombie horde. Some estimates peg the number of email spams sent each day at around 55 billion, the vast majority of which are sent by infected PCs, usually without any knowledge of it by their owner.

It’s all part of what’s known as a botnet, giant networks of malware-infected PCs that act as slaves to a master controller via the Internet. These PCs, called zombies, are perhaps the biggest security threat on the Internet today.

And now the FBI wants to do something about it. How? It’s directly contacting a million PC owners to let them know what they ought to have known all along: That their computers are infected and are being hijacked for nefarious uses. The goal is to help track down the source of these infections and put the hackers responsible behind bars. "Operation Bot Roast" has already led to the arrest of three scammers.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said a complaint lodged by Google was baseless, as the software company was complying with a 2002 antitrust settlement.

In a complaint filed with the Department of Justice in December, Google said a feature built into Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system that allows users to search a computer’s hard drive did not leave room for competition from other desktop search applications.

Google argues that this feature violates a consent decree that monitors Microsoft’s behavior as part of its settlement with the U.S. government, which had accused the company of using its monopoly to harm competition by incorporating new features into its operating system at no additional costs.