Redmond, Washington -- Software monopolist Microsoft without fanfare over the weekend has sneaked out the latest version of its Microsoft Security Essentials 2 (MSE) antivirus software.

San Francisco -- Software monopolist Microsoft Corp. is making Bing soothing to the eyes, and hopefully easier to use, on Wednesday unveiled a swathe of updates to Bing.com, like integration with GrubHub and OpenTable, and a slew of new mobile, local, travel and social-media features for Bing in an attempt to make the search engine more competitive, hoping that better packaging will help it eat away search-industry leader Google's online dominance.

Redmond, Washington -- Malls are, by their very nature, quite large and gives an irresistible feeling, and while that lends itself well to a diversified retail experience, it can also be overwhelming, if you are visiting one for the first time and are unaware of the layout. Well to that end and just in time for the shopping season: Bing now maps out which stores are inside of malls instead of just placing a map marker on the building itself.

It is a rare venture that Microsoft has introduced a search features that has not been covered by Google in one form or the other yet, and if it is the case we often notice those features disappear as quickly as they surfaced. This time, Microsoft has one of the more useful new features first. Similar to satellite imagery when viewing Bing Maps on a mobile device or in the Bing Maps beta, the mall layer pops up only when you are at a certain zoom level. You can then click on any of the listed stores to get information like its address and telephone number.

Redmond, Washington -- Attempting to safeguard itself in advance, software monopolists Microsoft on Tuesday announced that its next version of its popular Internet Explorer browser will include a novel technology that can block third-party firms from tracking a user's activity on the Web.

The software maker's announcement comes just less than a week after the Federal Trade Commission demanded the creation of a “Do-Not-Track" mechanism that would protect users' privacy online, as part of a preliminary report outlining ways to improve consumer privacy online, that would allow consumers to choose whether they want to be tracked as they surf the Web. Microsoft's innovative tracking protection feature will be available on Internet Explorer 9 version, which is expected to be available early next year.

Redmond, Washington -- As part of an initiative to bring innovation and improvements to its Bing Maps, Microsoft has hired "Steve Coast" the man who fostered a great reputation in the geospatial community by founding OpenStreetMap, "a free editable map of the whole world," the company announced Tuesday.

The software maker announced that Coast will be crowned with the impressive title "Principal Architect of Bing Mobile."

"As a Principal Architect for Bing Mobile, Coast will help foster better mapping experiences for our customers and partners, and lead efforts to engross with OpenStreetMap and other open source and open data projects," stated a Microsoft blog announcement posted Tuesday.

Redmond, Washington -- In an attempt to keep pace with its rivals, Bing continues to upgrade its numerous product offerings, and over the weekend announced a series of enhancements to the Bing Maps interface, which coincides with the "AJAX V7 Control," eliminating the need for Silverlight to view enhanced Bird's Eye map views, touting both their faster load times and quicker performance.

Redmond, Washington -- Software monopolist Microsoft's 2007 investment into Facebook keeps paying dividends for both companies in their battle against Google. Social networking titan Facebook on Monday announced that it is embedding Microsoft's online versions of its Office applications into the Facebook messaging service.

Redmond, Washington -- Windows Live Hotmail has a new mojo up its sleeve--one that is aimed directly at getting users with e-mail accounts on other services to use it exclusively, even if they keep that address. Software monopolist Microsoft has announced a cool new feature that enables users to send and receive e-mail from a non-Hotmail accounts.

Redmond, Washington -- Adobe is not the only company being attracted by the sweet taste of HTML5, reports are swirling across the tech media and the blogosphere that Microsoft is shifting its emphasis away from its own Silverlight rich client environment in favor of HTML5.

Redmond, Washington -- Software major Microsoft's Games for Windows Live software, which offers digital game sales, friend lists and DRM to publishers, is geared up to launch an online gaming store. Starting November 15, Microsoft will begin selling about 100 Windows PC games directly online, the company announced Friday.

San Francisco -- Aiming to bolster its hosted productivity-focused software applications from the cloud, software monopolist Microsoft shoved another step onto Google's turf, on Tuesday announced that it will bundle its Office Web Apps system with several other familiar business applications in an online collection it calls "Office 365," in an attempt to further shift away from the packaged based software on which the firm's fortunes were built.

Redmond, Washington -- In a surprise move, Microsoft Corp.'s software chief "Ray Ozzie," the technical visionary who was appointed to galvanize Microsoft's attempt to overhaul its business for the Internet era, is to leave the company after a brief transition, it was announced unexpectedly on Monday.

Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft and Facebook moved to bridge the gap between social media and search Wednesday when the two companies announced tighter integration to create Bing Social. Starting on Wednesday, Bing will allow searchers to view results generated by their Facebook friends' use of the "like" button on the social network, in an attempt to bolstering its fledgling Bing search engine to catch up with Google Inc., Microsoft announced today.

New York -- In a major thrust to get its mojo working in wireless devices, Microsoft Corp. on Monday in a last-ditch attempt unveiled a new line of Windows-based smartphones and other technology, much of which will have voice, video and data service from Dallas-based AT T, which has won favorable early reviews, but it may come too late to claw back customers from Apple Inc and Google Inc. -- this is the latest attempt by a rival company to challenge Apple's iPhone.

Redmond, Washington -- Software major Microsoft over the weekend has decided to restructure its once highly touted "Live Labs" -- a nearly five-year-old incubation project that brought us PhotoSynth, SeaDragon, Pivot, and more, will now be "transitioning" the group to Bing, as former Yahoo executive Gary Flake, who headed the development effort now plans to leave the company.

Redmond, Washington -- US software monopolist Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it has acquired AVIcode, Inc., a Maryland-based private firm that delivers performance monitoring for applications and services on Microsoft's .NET Framework, the companies announced Wednesday.

Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft is heading for a mobile race. Barely a week from today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer along with AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets CEO Ralph de la Vega will be appearing at a New York City press conference on October 11, to unveil the widely anticipated "Windows Phone 7" smartphones, where the companies are expected to announce the release dates for the new mobile operating system.

Redmond, Washington -- Security is something that is necessarily essential for internet companies that provide email and social networking services. Taking this in to account, software monopolist Microsoft earlier this week has released raft of new Hotmail security features aimed at blocking email hijackers and helping users reclaim compromised accounts. It is also adding closer integration to Facebook and LinkedIn for Windows Live.

Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft on Monday announced that it is scrapping its aging Windows Live Spaces blogging technology and has instead forged alliance with Wordpress to move the millions of blogs hosted its blog publishing platform, which will be closed, the companies announced.

Redmond, Washington -- If you love the iPhone but you are a Microsoft fan at heart, you are certainly already familiar with the Bing app for iPhone. In its attempt to keep the Bing for Mobile iPhone app head-to-head in the swiftly evolving mobile OS space, Redmond-based software maker on Monday released yet another update for the iPhone and iPod Touch to version 1.3, enhancing the travel features, simplifying maps and adding relevant business and neighborhood labels to help users quickly find locations, the company announced on the Bing Community blog.