If patenting the obvious is considered something of an art form in the world of IT, then Microsoft is undoubtedly an old master. The Page Up Page Down patent it has been granted would seem to confirm this…

US Patent 7,415,666 goes under the snappy title of: “Method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments” and is the latest to be granted to that serial patent application junkie better known as Microsoft.

Anyone who has ever looked at technology patents will know that there is a trick to quickly scanning these application titles in order to weed out the genuine ones from those that are, to be fair, just attempting to patent something that already exists.

So what could a method of navigating paginated content, or stuff on the page, using page-based increments possibly refer to? Ding! Of course, the PgUp and PgDn

The format used by Microsoft Corp.’s Office 2007 programs to save documents will become an international standard after appeals against the move failed to gather sufficient support, the International Organization for Standardization said Friday.

The decision ends months of wrangling over whether Microsoft’s Office Open XML format should be considered an open standard - a requirement for many lucrative government contracts.

Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela had complained that an international ballot held in April was poorly conducted and rushed them into a decision based on incomplete information.

Technical panels at the Geneva-based ISO and its sister organization, the International Electrotechnical Commission, considered the appeals but concluded that they lacked the necessary support of two-thirds of their membership.

The two bodies said it will take several weeks before OOXML officially becomes an international standard.

The new suite allows students to create reports and presentations with ease as well as study tools to use on an iPod or iPhone. Office 2008 for Mac is available for up to 30 percent off with the purchase of any Mac at Apple resellers now through Sept. 8, 2008. A full list of participating Apple resellers is available here and clicking on a “Save Now” link. In addition, many schools have volume licensing agreements with Microsoft Corp. and are able to provide discounted licenses of Microsoft software for student use.

Well this is just perfect. At the exact moment Li Ning was rounding the lip of the Bird’s Nest during the amazing torch-lighting climax, someone snapped this photo of our good friend the BSOD nestled amongst the Nest’s steel twigs. Perhaps an Opening Cermonies IT dude spit out his coffee on the machines in the server room when Li took to the sky? Another question is what a projection screen is doing inside the Nest at that location, but I think the better question is what wasn’t going on inside the Nest’s roof—did you see that thing during the ceremonies? Lights! Fireworks! LED screens! Everything! Anyway, if only one image of this perfectness existed we’d be skeptical, but thankfully, someone has grabbed more from a different angle that pretty much seal the deal.

This week at the Black Hat Security Conference two security researchers will discuss their findings which could completely bring Windows Vista to its knees.

Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. have discovered a technique that can be used to bypass all memory protection safeguards that Microsoft built into Windows Vista. These new methods have been used to get around Vista’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and other protections by loading malicious content through an active web browser. The researchers were able to load whatever content they wanted into any location they wished on a user’s machine using a variety of objects, such as Java, ActiveX and even .NET objects. This feat was achieved by taking advantage of the way that Internet Explorer (and other browsers) handle active scripting in the Operating System.

While this may seem like any standard security hole, other researchers say that the work is a major breakthrough and there is very little that Microsoft can do to fix the problems. These attacks work differently than other security exploits, as they aren’t based on any new Windows vulnerabilities, but instead take advantage of the way Microsoft chose to guard Vista’s fundamental architecture. According to Dino Dai Zovi, a popular security researcher, “the genius of this is that it’s completely reusable. They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That’s completely game over.”

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it has finished work on SQL Server 2008, the latest version of its database software.

The software maker in a statement said it has reached the “release to manufacturing” stage, meaning that it has finalized the code for the software.

Although its release was delayed from its initial target, Microsoft said it was able to meet its goal of having a new version within 24 to 36 months from the release of SQL Server 2005.

SQL Server 2008 comes in a number of editions, ranging from the free SQL Server 2008 Express to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise. Other editions include standard, work group, developer, Web, and compact, which runs on both PCs and Windows Mobile devices.

Pricing is comparable to what Microsoft charged for the prior version, SQL Server 2005.

In a blog post this week, Microsoft’s Chris Flores noted that 20 percent of new Windows Vista PCs in the U.S. that connected to Windows Update in June were running a 64-bit version of the OS, compared with 3 percent of new computers in March.

“Put more simply, usage of 64-bit Windows Vista is growing much more rapidly than 32-bit,” he said. “Based on current trends, this growth will accelerate as the retail channel shifts to supplying a rapidly increasing assortment of 64-bit desktops and laptops.”

The trend is also evident by looking at the kinds of systems being sold at retailers. In its circular this Sunday most of the desktops and half of the dozen notebook models being advertised by Office Depot had the 64-bit version of Windows pre-installed.

The mix was similar in Circuit City’s advertisement, with nearly all of the desktops and many of the notebooks running 64-bit Windows

Gateway, for example, is shifting to an entirely 64-bit Windows lineup on its desktops, starting with the back-to-school shopping season.

It’s a dramatic shift even from last quarter, in which only about 5 percent of its total desktop and notebook models had a 64-bit OS installed. For the third quarter, 95 percent of desktop models and 30 percent of notebook systems will have a 64-bit OS.

Microsoft is ready to start expanding its AdCenter engine to allow at least some publishers to include contextual advertising from Microsoft on their site.

According to a letter detailing the program and published on TechCrunch, Microsoft is doing a pilot program that allows smaller publishers to use contextual advertising from Microsoft, putting it potentially in competition with Google’s AdSense and Yahoo’s publisher network.

Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 video game console will be able to stream thousands of movies over the Internet, thanks to a deal announced Monday with Netflix Inc. that highlights the way gaming devices are expanding into all-purpose home-entertainment hubs.

The arrangement, revealed at the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles, will let Netflix subscribers stream 10,000 movies and TV shows to Xbox consoles for viewing on television sets, beginning this fall. Xbox had movies and shows available for download before, but only half as many.

“This generation of consoles will change the face of home entertainment more than any other generation before,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment division.

As Microsoft vies for a stronger foothold in the living room, so is rival Sony Corp., which has tried to make its PlayStation 3 into a broader entertainment device by including Blu-ray high-definition DVD players in the consoles.

The deal with Microsoft also marks an important expansion for Netflix, whose 18-month-old streaming service - which supplements its DVD-by-mail program - has been available on computers instead of TVs, unless consumers had bought a small streaming device from a Netflix-backed startup called Roku Inc.

Microsoft already has sold more than 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the United States. More than half of Xbox 360 owners pay $50 a year for a “gold” membership, which will be required for access to Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” library. They also must subscribe to Netflix, which charges $9 per month for the least expensive plan that includes unlimited streaming.

In partnering with Microsoft, Netflix may be building the streaming service to prepare for the day when the convenience and widespread availability of video downloading kills its DVD-by-mail service.

Microsoft is now acknowledging it screwed up with its initial launch of Windows Vista, and is ready to try again.

“We broke a lot of things. We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain. It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in?” So Brad Brooks, Microsoft’s VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, fessed up publicly this week.

Speaking at a keynote address at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, Brooks signified that Microsoft was ready to admit mistakes and reposition itself to tell a better story about Windows Vista, to counter attacks by rival Apple and let customers know that Vista is finally stable and ready.

Microsoft on Monday sent out a reminder that it would distribute a new version of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP through its Automatic Update service “shortly.”

Nick MacKechnie, senior technical account manager at Microsoft New Zealand, said in a company blog post that if IT administrators wanted to prevent the automatic installation then they should download and deploy the Windows Service Pack Blocker Kit from the company’s online download center, or deploy update management software that provides full control over updates deployed to computers on a network.

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced new security features within the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. The features are designed to combat the rising tide of drive-by downloads and malicious scripts contained within carefully crafted links embedded in e-mail and Web pages. Most of the new features require systems to be running Windows Vista SP1 or Windows XP SP3.

Perhaps the most anticipated addition is Internet Explorer’s new antimalware protection. Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 both recently added antimalware protection. Safari has so far not announced plans for similar protection. Using mostly its own antimalware technology, Microsoft will block emerging threats by masking the entire IE 8 browser screen with a warning to users. The addition of malware protection to the existing antiphishing protection will be re-branded as the Microsoft SmartScreen filter.

IE 8 Beta 2 will have a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) filter, preventing scripts within a link from executing on the browser.