At the software maker’s five labs, ongoing projects include research on self-taught spam filters, network shields, satellite-driven Web services and efforts to give end users their own terabyte of personal storage.

An adware purveyor has apparently used two previously unknown security flaws in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser to install a toolbar on victims’ computers that triggers pop-up ads. One flaw lets an attacker run a program on a victim’s machine, while the other enables malicious code to "cross zones," or run with privileges higher than normal.

What if your computer could read the newspaper for you and tell you just what you needed to know? What about 1,000 newspapers? Researchers at Microsoft think computers can do just that. Someday.

A New York state appeals court has rejected Microsoft’s attempt to throw out a class-action suit alleging deceptive and monopolistic business practices. The state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the lawsuit could continue, overruling part of a lower court’s decision that had sided with Microsoft.

Laptops containing sensitive financial details and all manner of corporate secrets can be snapped up at auctions for a pittance, a security company said. Stockholm, Sweden-based Pointsec Mobile Technologies, which sells encryption software and other products designed to protect sensitive information on mobile devices, said it bought 100 laptop computers from a host of Internet and public auctions over the past two months to show how vulnerable data can be.

This article on WindowsSecurity.com introduces you to a way of installing the SQL server that will guarantee a high level of the service’s security.

May saw the highest recorded number of email messages classified as spam, according to one survey. Antivirus software maker MessageLabs said it scanned 909 million emails sent to its customers and found that 691.5 million of them were spam, a rate of 76%.

Both Exchange and Windows have made dramatic improvements in clustering for the 2003 releases. Servers that are members of a cluster share information between themselves about some of the applications installed on the servers. These applications are said to be "under cluster control."

Microsoft released two security patches for its Windows operating systems, plugging holes in an online gaming feature and a third-party program the company includes with several applications.

Microsoft filed a brief, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn a $565 million patent infringement judgment. The 174-page document, filed June 3, attacks a U.S. District Court decision that said Microsoft violated a patent, owned by the University of California and its Eolas spinoff. The patent describes how a Web browser can run plug-in applications.