What do you get when you combine $300 million, Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld? Apparently a string of unusual commercials in which Seinfeld plays himself and Gates plays a what we can only hope is a caricature of himself. All set in a mall. (A mall? Couldn't find a Stuckey's or Tower Records to shoot in?) The first of what we can only imagine will be a relentless onslaught of Microsoft commercials featuring Seinfeld......

You can download the beta 2 version of Microsoft's IE8 if you want. We are not that brave, but you should totally do it and tell us what it's like, maybe after the reinstall. While IE Ocho is supposed to be "quicker" than something slower, the new, counterintuitive feature that has previewing journalists in a lather is something called "InPrivate Browsing" (aka "porn mode"). We say counterintuitive, because Redmond has not established themselves as basecamp......

We haven't had the time to test out local software company Microsoft's PhotoSynth for ourselves, but have you? What do you think--is the new elaborate automatic panorama service more than or merely as useful as the Google Maps confirmation that cows prefer to stand aligned north/south? Warning: if you go to www.photosynth.com using an old-ish browser, you'll get chastised by a pop-up window. "Still using IE6 I see," is the (verbatim) message we received. Ouch!......

Tired of those ridiculously clever Mac vs. PC commercials painting them as out-of-date and incompetent, Microsoft is trying a new ad campaign of their own. A $300 million dollar ad campaign to be exact, with Jerry Seinfeld as the star-power at the helm. We're a PC-owner and we find ourselves nodding knowingly at the Apple ads all the time. So Microsoft and Seinfeld are going to have to come up with something mighty clever......

It is the kind of event for which cliche sayings like "it's the end of an era" were made. Today is Bill Gates' last day as the chairman of Microsoft, the software company he created and made into an all-encompassing empire. While Gates will remain the non-executive chairman of Microsoft, his full-time job will be with the Gates Foundation, he and wife Melinda's international health non-profit. One of his first stops after bowing out of......

When we read that the Seattle Times had a large feature on the top paid CEOs in the Pacific Northwest, we wondered what the point was. Everyone knows Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Jeff Bezos—all local CEOs—are richer than God. And it turns out everyone, this Seattlest included, is wrong. According to the Times piece, the best paid local CEO in 2007 was James Voelker, who runs Bellevue's InfoSpace—a company we've never heard of.......

The first five seasons of Major League Soccer in Seattle will be brought to you by Microsoft and Xbox 360 Live. The team and the Redmond software giant announced the sponsorship today at a press conference. Microsoft has offered the Sounders $20 million for a five year sponsorship. Their sponsorship guarantees that the Sounders' uniforms will have "Xbox 360 Live" stitched across the front in a prominet place. Former Seattlest editor Seth Kolloen got......

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer looked more than a little surprised when a Hungarian man unleashed a verbal and egg-filled tirade today during a lecture at a Budapest university. And thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, you can witness the egging, amongst 608 other Steve Ballmer videos. The man doesn't appear to be angry at Microsoft's latest bid to buy out Yahoo's search engine; rather, he rants about Microsoft repaying Hungarian taxpayers.......

Apparently we're not the only ones with hope for Microsoft! Wired Magazine published an interview this morning with Mary Jo Foley, author of the cutely-titled book Microsoft 2.0, about the future of the company as Bill Gates leaves the day-to-day ops in the hands of Steve "I walked away from Yahoo" Ballmer. Her verdict? "It's dangerous for companies of any size to count them out. They're still good at figuring out how to come......

"Mac vs. PC" by Etchasketchist, with permission. Cool! Microsoft's getting busy this spring, as well they should. Reports of two separate deals struck by the corporate behemoth with NBC Universal and Hyundai came rolling in late last night, as well as a flurry of speculation and analysis on the failed Yahoo buy-out. Despite last-ditch efforts, is this the beginning of the end for Gates & Co? The NBC deal means you'll be able to......

Anyone want to start taking bets on how far Yahoo stocks will drop this morning? Double your winning by guessing the proper amount of time it takes for the descent to begin. After Microsoft withdrew their bid for Yahoo late this weekend, Seattlest is guessing the crash will begin within the first few seconds of trading. Microsoft's withdrawl was spurned by another Yahoo rejection. Despite raising their bid for Yahoo by over $5 million,......

No police force outside of Medina has more time on its hands than Redmond’s finest. So it comes with more than a little amusement that three South End “thugs” thought they could get away with robbing folks at Redmond bus stops. The three thieves were apprehended after a teenager matching one of the descriptions ran in front of a former victim who happened to be talking to an officer. So much for leaving the......

"Microsoft Live platform" by niallkennedy. Yesterday, Microsoft announced a pretty cool new online service that will take the Google Documents concept to the next level: users of Live Mesh will be able to sync content from their computers, handhelds, cell phones, and potentially even their Zunes with that of other users in the same mesh, via the internet. As we understand it, the service is like an inter-office computer network, but users can upload/download......

Bill Gates doesn't have to wait for much of anything these days, even when it comes to Homeland Security altering laws based on his recommendations. Gates testified before Congress on March 12th of this year requesting the government to reconsider its stance on the length of time foreign non-immigrant students could remain and work in the US. Less than a month later, on April 4th, the Department of Homeland Security granted his request verbatim.......

Light rail is about to be in the news in a big way again. Shortly after announcing an increase in ridership of 12.5 percent on Sound Transit and 7 percent on King County Metro last year, it's looking like light rail will be back on the ballot in '08. The Seattle Transit Blog, The Stranger and others are all predicting that the Sound Transit Board is coming back to voters with another light rail expansion......

Just months after spending $240 million to own a portion of the company, Bill Gates has removed his personal Facebook profile. Gates had supposedly purchased a small portion of the social-networking company because he'd so enjoyed using the website. However, after Gate's investment in the company and his personal profile came to light, the Microsoft founder was inundated with friend requests. The London Sun reported that Gates was receiving up to 8,000 friend requests......

Yahoo has denied Microsoft something it wants, and Microsoft is none too happy. Today Yahoo Corporation officially rejected Microsoft's 45 billion dollar unsolicited buy-out offer as insufficient. 45 Billion?!? Every time we heard the offer, we thought to ourselves, that reporter must have made a mistake - he must've meant 45 million. Guess not. Even that astronomical number, according to Yahoo "significantly undervalues [the company's] worth." Microsoft has issued a counter-statement saying (in a shady......

A few months ago we switched back to Rhapsody music service from Yahoo!'s whatever-the-hell-it-was. A year earlier, we'd been bargain-shopping and Yahoo!'s $5.99/mo. price point had caught our eye. We locked in a year's subscription -- and then discovered Rhapsody's selection was superior (from tiny indie bands all the way through classical and foreign), as well as its player's features. That $9.99/mo. was worth it, after all. (We don't pay for the more expensive subscribe-your-mp3-player-too......

Economic downturn? Recession? Job losses? Really? Sure, Seattle's housing market finally cooled a bit, but listening to business news this morning you'd be excused for thinking all this talk about a bad economy is a crock of shit, at least here in Seattle. First there's Microsoft (via the PI):Microsoft Corp. announced a bid to buy Yahoo Inc. for nearly $45 billion on Friday, pursuing a blockbuster deal that could reshape the Internet industry by......

The last film we caught at the festival was The Visitor, written and directed by Tom McCarthy, best known for his 2003 Sundance darling The Station Agent. Like the previous film, McCarthy's sophomore piece is a well-crafted work about how people from disparate backgrounds can come together and form an unconventional family. Walter Vale, an uptight widower and bored college econ professor, has totally shut down and withdrawn from everything in his life, but......

Imaginary Seattleite #1: So where do you work? Imaginary Seattleite #2: Microsoft. Something cool I was working on just launched. IS #1: You worked on Vista? Sweet. IS #2: No, actually it was... IS #1: Wait, wait, let me guess. You worked on the Zune? That's totally badass. That got such a bad rap. IS #2: Nope. Really, you'll never... IS #1: No, no, I'm good at this. Um...are you in the Mac division? Did......

The Rev. Ken Hutcherson, who, in addition to demonstrating the importance of increased protective headgear for linebackers, bully-pulpits Redmond's Antioch Bible Church, announced he's founded the AGN Financial Network, to finance his plan to buy Microsoft his brand of morality. The idea is that Christian investors would buy three shares of Microsoft's stock and donate one to AGN. The P-I reports one small obstacle, i.e., reality:It's unclear what effect, if any, the initiative could have......

Seattlest emailed a bunch of local tech professionals and asked them for the best of the Seattle tech scene in 2007. They responded and we threw all their suggestions in a list, looked it over, and scrapped 90% of them and then made up a new list off the top of our heads. And, yes, it's too late to talk about the year passed and we're more than ready to look forward, but we didn't......

Birth of a fetish: The Register reports an unfortunate MSN messenger encounter between two young girls and Microsoft's badly programmed Santa chat bot. Apparently "RoboSanta" has "a shocking predeliction for casually dropping in that it likes to talk about a certain sex act." The Register (El Reg, below) replicated the conversation, starting out by offering St. Nick a piece of pizza: El Reg says: pizza (pi) Santa says: Yum! What do you want for......

Rockstar Seattlest commenter (ex; you're dead to us, Jake) 8bitjake had the scoop earlier this week for those that were paying attention. He got an email from a friend at the Eastside game studio Bungie: "So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week. You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft......

2003: Never Forget This week's Stranger news section contains an article about a Nintendo contractor who was fired for her blog. "Not work appropriate" said Nintendo, although, what the hell does that have to do with anything? The blogger Jessica Zenner blogged anonymously and without naming her employer or her coworkers. It sounds like her blog was known among her coworkers, though, and according to the article she used "hormonal, facial-hair-growing, frumpy" to describe......

So we'll begin, the guy at the podium said, the huge black blast door in the Microsoft Auditorium at the Downtown Library eased down its track, slowly cutting off our view of the lobby, and we shivered. "I wish the P-I were here," said the Stranger's Josh Feit at one point. "This is what they do really well." Oddly enough, the Seattle P-I, the hands-down leader in news on the web around here, wasn't on......

Man, if the EU court that stuck it to Microsoft this weekend and Mr. and Mrs. Slowsky were in a race it would probably go off the board for betters. It's. Taking. For. Ever. The crime is Microsoft shutting out competitors by bundling Windows Media Player with Windows, which, to us at least, seems like an ancient issue. What are they going to go after Microsoft for next? Attaching round wheels to an axle? We......

We're living in the town that Microsoft Office built, and all in all it's not too shabby. Every once in a while we're struck by something and think, "wow, someone paid upwards of $300 for a graphical representation of a talking paper clip and we used the money to build this..." But generally it's been a pretty good deal for Seattle. Time marches on, though, and what was once the raison d'etre for personal computers......

If you could afford it, would you wait for these guys to make things better? Microsoft can afford it.......