It won't hit the doorstep with a satisfying thud, or crinkle pleasantly in the hands. But Bill Gates on Friday showed a computer program meant to imitate -- and improve upon -- the experience of reading ink on newsprint.

Speaking in Seattle to a convention of the nation's newspaper editors, the Microsoft Corp. chairman brought out executives from The New York Times to demonstrate prototype software that displays text and images on the computer screen in much the same way as in the paper.

Browser add-ons can help personalize the way you use the Internet. The add-ons available here have been carefully screened by Microsoft and rated by users to help you select the ones that suit your needs and preferences. Start exploring them today.

A user interface device has a graphical user interface that can simultaneously display a combination of television and Internet content in various display modes. The display modes may have different proportions, positioning or other features of the Internet and television content. A viewer of the user interface device may change display modes, such as by selecting a link available in each of the display modes. The television content being displayed may be a broadcast show and the Internet content may be chat from a chat room corresponding to the television show. Various display modes are provided for displaying the television show and corresponding chat, ranging from maximal television display and minimal chat display to minimal television display and maximal chat display. Changing television channels may initiate a corresponding change in the chat room being participated in and the content being displayed.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the spinout of a new social networking technology, developed by Microsoft Research, to create a new Silicon Valley startup, Wallop Inc. Wallop, whose aim is to deliver the next generation of social computing, is led by experienced entrepreneur and CEO Karl Jacob, with 30-year veteran Bay Partners providing Series A financing. ...

“What is exciting to us is Wallop’s vision to turn social computing on its head and significantly change how we look at this sector,” said Eric Chin, venture partner at Bay Partners and now member of the Wallop board. “There is no question that with a talented management team and innovative technology, Wallop is well positioned to take the market by storm.”

Wallop Advances Social Networking

Launching later this year, Wallop solves the problems plaguing current social networking technologies and will introduce an entirely new way for consumers to express their individuality online. For example, today’s social networks have difficulty enabling people to interact in a way similar to the way they would in the real world. Wallop tapped legendary Frog Design Inc. to conceive a next-generation user interface enabling people to express themselves like never before. In addition, Wallop departs from the friend-of-a-friend model common in all social networks today and the root of many of their problems. Instead, Wallop developed a unique set of algorithms that respond to social interactions to automatically build and maintain a person’s social network.

The deal theoretically would enable a scenario where a song, first downloaded over a mobile phone network, could be then securely transferred to a PC. No wireless carrier has announced support for such a plan, however.

Meanwhile, No. 3 Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Search share drop from 14 percent to 11 percent.

"As of today no PC maker has shipped a version of XPN ... not a single one," said Microsoft lawyer Bellis, noting that such companies accounted for nine out of 10 sales of Windows.

As for the rest, stores ordered 1,787 copies of XPN among 35 million copies of Windows, giving it an order ratio of 0.005 percent, he said.

Microsoft has hired Steven Berkowitz, the chief executive of Ask Jeeves, to run its floundering Internet division, Microsoft said yesterday.

The Live Experimentation Platform is Microsoft's latest move toward making Windows Live not just a collection of services, but a developer platform in its own right. Microsoft rivals Google, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay all are embarking on similar strategies, by exposing more services as open application-programming interfaces and encouraging developers to build mash-ups, composite applications and other consumer and business software atop their respective platforms.

More than 2,900 gamers from around the world staged the world’s largest water balloon event in Australia today. The Water Balloon Challenge, held on Sydney’s Coogee Beach, celebrated the record-breaking launch of the Xbox 360™ console in Australia and raised money for a local lifesaving group.

About 50,000 water balloons, the same number of Xbox 360 consoles that have been sold in the country since the launch on March 23, 2006, were thrown by participants. Gamers traveled from as far away as Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States to take part in the event.

“It was absolutely crazy when the balloons started flying — there was so much water I should have worn scuba gear,” said Niels Keurentjes of the Netherlands. “I flew thousands of miles to get here, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Online auction house eBay is discussing potential partnerships with Yahoo and Microsoft in response to a growing Google threat, according to a report published Friday.

Managed by the new Windows Live ID and Live Accounts technologies, Voice Mail Aggregation will give you the ability to store voice mail from your different phone numbers, all in the same place. This service provides the capabilities to store the voice mail in three different audio formats: MP3, WAV, and WMA. Your preference for file formats can be changed on the fly, anytime you want.