Microsoft is putting the Windows client OS on a diet as a way to bring the PC OS into the age of cloud computing.

Windows 7, Vista’s follow-up, already will be a thinner, more streamlined OS, replacing some of the software Microsoft previously included with the OS with Web-based Windows Live Services. And if comments made by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week are any indication, Windows will slim down even further in the future, returning to the original intent of an OS — a way to optimize the hardware it runs on — instead of being a bloated piece of software whose performance and value rely on compatibility with installed applications.

“The purpose of the OS on the device is to have the best value on that device,” Ozzie said at PDC in an interview with the IDG News Service, adding that there is still “tremendous opportunity for innovation” for using the OS to leverage device hardware.

He said that in the future Windows will have “base connections to the Internet” so people can connect to the Web through a browser and services like Windows Update.

But Microsoft won’t rely too heavily on the Internet to achieve its goal to support innovative hardware features — such as touch-screen capability — so people in places without reliable connections to the Web can still reap the benefits of the OS, he said.

This slimming down of the client OS is as much a way for Microsoft to keep Windows relevant as a hardware OS as it is for the company to concede to the new cloud-computing and services paradigm that Google, Amazon and other companies are pioneering.

Vista might have been a good place to start this evolution, but Microsoft missed the opportunity, said Brian Madden, an independent technology analyst in San Francisco.

He said Vista “would have been great” if it had come out in the late 1990s or even in the early part of the 21st century, the height of the trend to use client-side applications on PCs that is rapidly becoming obsolete as hosted services evolve.

“Vista to me is the culmination of the old way of thinking as the desktop should be,” he said, and the fact that it came out in 2007, as the industry was shifting from packaged software to Web-based applications, was “a huge disaster.”

Madden called the company’s plan to evolve Windows to be lighter and nimble a “reluctant” one. “Microsoft is not leading the way down this path, they’re being dragged kicking and screaming by companies like Google,” he said.

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Google quietly updated its web browser to v0.3 earlier today. According to Google, the new release fixes several “top” bugs, increases the software’s performance, and patches security problems. The software is available in 42 languages.

Chrome launched as v0.2 and made a huge impact almost months ago. Interest in the browser has somewhat faded since then. According to Net Applications, Chrome currently has a market share of about 0.7%, down from more than 1% in early September. While it has made an overall positive impression on the media, the browser is far from complete. One major update was rolled out today.

The new version addresses a pop-up spoofing vulnerability, enables touchpad scrolling, promises more performance and reliability for Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime and Windows Media plug-in, fixes a “Chrome has crashed” message when closing a tab with an Acrobat 9 PDF and works much better with web proxies now. Also, Chrome no longer stores data from secure web sites.

Additionally, the New tab, New window, and New incognito window options were moved from the ‘Control the current page’ menu to the ‘Customize and control Google Chrome’ (wrench) menu. A ‘New incognito window’ now always opens a new window. The spell checker works on text input fields and underlines misspelled words and users can now add words to the spell check dictionary. Downloaded executable files are downloaded to “unconfirmed_*.download” files and will only be converted to a regular file if a user clicks Save. Unconfirmed downloads will be deleted when Chrome exits.

With the transition to version 0.3.154.9, Google has also modified the information about Chrome within the browser. While the companied mentioned before that Chrome uses the Apple WebKit 525.13, Google now simply states that the browser is made possible by the Chromium project.

Chrome users can update the software simply by clicking the update button in the “About” window of Chrome (which can be found in the ‘wrench’ menu of the browser). Google said that Chrome browser should update automatically over the next few days.

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Today, Radus is launching a sleek media browsing website that allows users to search, discover, share, post and view digital content from various internet sources, including blogs and social networking sites. I like the “iphone’ looking user interface and the search function that gives fast access to different type of search results: videos, text, photos or all type. The relevancy of the search results is not as satisfying as it is with Google, I tested it with several words like “G1 phone”, ” iPhone” or “Blackberry Storm”, the results are sufficiently relevant but not as good as what I get from Google from a pure information prospective. However, to search and discover videos and photos, Radus’ user experience is better than Google. When you resizes the window, the user interface adapts itself very well, allowing the application to make the most of its surface, that’s neat.

I did not test too much the social component (friend list, interacting with other members, sharing…), I was able to quickly post a video on my Facebook profile. I am not a fan of the way the articles from the various news and blogs sources are displayed: the source name is not visible inside Radus, you can only discover it once you clicked on the article, it takes you the original article page in another window. I saw this product for the first time at DEMOFall 07 under the name metaRadar, and I was immediately drawn to its design and user experience (this version is a bit different). The mobile version will be available later.

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Starting November 19, Microsoft will be coming a lot closer to its goal to turn the Xbox 360 into the universal home entertainment most of us will ever need. Microsoft’s deal will open up the Xbox 360 to an all-you-can-eat video streaming fest that covers more than 10,000 movies and TV shows. What is unique about the Xbox-Netflix relationship is the fact that the console will get HD content, which not only pitches it against Apple’s hobby project Apple TV, but also against Blu-ray.

According to NewTeeVee’s Chris Albrecht, major update for the Xbox Live service is scheduled for November 19. Called “New Xbox Experience,” users will be treated to unlimited Netflix streaming in high-definition (HD) (as long they are subscribers to a Netflix subscription plan supporting unlimited streaming as well). TG Daily previously reported that Xbox 360 users will get an unlimited streaming of 10,000 movies and TV shows in Netflix’s library but we were unaware that at least some streams would be offered in HD.

The HD access is a clear advantage for the Xbox 360 over other Netflix-enabled devices such as certain Blu-ray players and the Roku box.

The cost involved is at least $8.99 a month for Netflix and $7.99 per month for the Xbox Live Gold service, translating into $17 per month or about $204 per year (Xbox Live Gold is also offered as an annual $50 subscription). We previously noted that charging for Netflix access may be a problem for Microsoft, but HD access may actually provide the additional value that could justify such a move.

In fact, HD streaming could be an important step Microsoft’s push into the family room – and as a strategy to skip Blu-ray. Many U.S. consumers have replaced their TV sets with never HDTVs and are ready to see higher quality visuals on their TVs.

Both Microsoft and Apple have had ideas for consumer entertainment, but there has not been a compelling product yet. Gamers purchase Xbox 360 primarily for gaming and mostly consider movies as add-on to the console. A non-gamer is unlikely to purchase the console just for its set-top box and video capabilities. Apple TV is an even stranger animal. Half set-top box, half iTunes streaming box, it never really made sense and remained an inconclusive product.

Some analysts think Apple should open up Apple TV to third-party developers and make it run the App Store to turn it into a casual gaming device. However, there is also the notion that set-top boxes will vanish once major HD TV makers begin adding set-top box capabilities directly into their TVs. Sony already announced that all of its Bravias will include a built-in module for Internet movie streaming and it is only a question of time before others will follow and much more powerful silicon will be integrated.

If you ask us, we actually believe that Apple’s best shot is to transform the Apple TV into a TV. Imagine 42” - 56” glossy screen with the Apple logo, covered with scratch-resistant glass and black borders around the screen edges, DVR, Wi-Fi/Ethernet/Bluetooth/USB2, video conferencing camera built-in and App Store support for games and additional applications.

As it stands now, Microsoft is certainly making the most impressive moves in home entertainment, while Netflix seems to be emerging as the default video rental store of the future.

And in line with Microsoft’s approach to turn the Xbox 360 into everything for everyone, we would like to put in a request for a USB-powered frozen pizza heating device.

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Apparently, Asus is going to launch its first Android phone in the first half of next year. ASUS has a history of making Windows Mobile phones and we can only guess that they will continue to do so, at least for the time being. Some speculate that after launching its own Android phone, Asus will produce “white label” phones for other brands. The ASUS P552w touch-phone or something like it could be the hardware platform for an Android phone.

Well, as long as it looks better than the T-Mobile G1, I’ll gladly look at it.

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Just a day after downplaying the vulnerability that caused it to issue an out-of-cycle patch last week, Microsoft Corp. late yesterday warned customers that exploit code had gone public and is being used in additional attacks.

“We’ve identified the public availability of exploit code that now shows code execution for the vulnerability addressed by MS08-067,” said Mike Reavey, operations manager of Microsoft’s Security Response Center, in a post to the MSRC blog Monday evening. “This exploit code has been shown to result in remote code execution on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.”

Microsoft also posted a security advisory to its Web site that outlined the new threat.

On Tuesday, a company spokesman declined to specify where Microsoft had found the attack code, saying only that the new warning came after Microsoft became “aware of detailed, reliable, public exploit code.” He also confirmed that the warning stemmed from code published to the Web, not the appearance of an exploit module in a proprietary penetration testing application.

Just the day before, another Microsoft employee had downplayed the threat posed by the bug in the Windows Server service that Microsoft patched last week — outside its regularly once-a-month schedule. “We are aware that people are working to develop reliable public exploit code for the vulnerability,” acknowledged Christopher Budd, a spokesman for the MSRC, in an entry he wrote Sunday. “We are aware of discussion about code posted on a public site, but our analysis has shown that code always results in a denial of service.

“So far, we’ve not seen evidence of public, reliable exploit code showing code execution,” Budd concluded then.

Previously, Microsoft said that it discovered the vulnerability after a small number of attacks had resulted in infections by an information-stealing Trojan, which it dubbed “Win32/MS08067.gen!A” and third-party anti-virus vendors tagged with their own names. Symantec Corp., for example, called it “Trojan.Gimmiv.”

It was unclear whether the just-published exploit code that Microsoft referenced Monday was in fact the same exploit used in those earlier attacks.

Yesterday, Reavey repeated earlier Microsoft assertions that attacks remained scattered. “Attacks are still limited and targeted, even with the release of this new exploit code,” he said. “The malware situation remains the same, as we’ve not seen any self-replicating worms, but instead malware that would be classified as Trojans, specifically the malware we discussed when we released the security update on Thursday.”

Users who have deployed the patch presented by MS08-067 last week are safe from attack by the published exploit, Reavey added.

The security bulletin that spells out the vulnerability is available on Microsoft’s site, and the patch can be downloaded manually or retrieved using the company’s Windows Update service.

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On an unofficial basis, of course. Folks who want the T-Mobile G1 there will have to fork out a whopping $550 for one - that’s over three times more than what it is on offer from T-Mobile in the US, albeit with a two-year contract. In order to unlock it, you will have to fork out an additional $73. Strange to see the G1 having such artificially inflated prices even though there is no shortage of the device in the market, and neither has it generated that much hype globally as compared to the iPhone.

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