Cody Taylor

theodp writes “Remember Mr. Microphone? If you thought music couldn’t get worse, think again. Perhaps with the help of R&D tax credits, Microsoft Research has spawned Songsmith, software that automatically creates a tinny, childish background track for your singing. And as bad as the pseudo-infomercial was, the use of the product in the wild is likely to be even scarier, as evidenced by these Songsmith’ed remakes of music by The Beatles, The Police, and The Notorious B.I.G..”

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This week in gaming brought us the inauguration of the 44th president Barack Obama as seen from Fallout 3, the release of an unexpected first-person gem for the DS in Moon, and more industry drama as Microsoft and Sony trade words.

thefickler writes “According to Microsoft’s quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Zune platform experienced a revenue drop of 54 percent, or 0 million. This compares to relatively healthy sales of the iPod, which were up 3 percent in the same period (though revenue did drop by 16 percent). Obviously, with the recent job cuts at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, pundits are wondering how soon until the Zune also gets the chop. As one pundit wrote: ‘Microsoft, by now, should be realizing that it’s never going to be as “cool” as Apple, so why waste its time with the Zune where it has no competitive advantage?'”

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The American President’s data can’t be trusted to Canada-based RIM, says Microsoft.

Move over, Atlanta. Seattle, Microsoft and Amazon.com’s home base, is now the country’s most wired city.

bk- writes with news that documents from the “Vista Capable” class-action lawsuit against Microsoft indicate the software giant could be on the hook for as much as .52 billion in upgrade costs. “[University of Washington economist Keith] Leffler came up with his total upgrade costs by calculating how much it would cost to upgrade each of the 19.4 million PCs with 1 GB of memory and graphics cards or onboard chipsets able to run Aero, according to Keizer. Leffler put the maximum cost of upgrading the desktops at 5, while positing that the notebooks’ integrated graphics would be more tricky to replace and would cost between 5 and 0 per unit. The total price tag for Microsoft would thus range from .92 billion to .52 billion and in some cases would include complete replacements of notebooks that could not be feasibly upgraded, Leffler testified. Microsoft in its response argued that giving litigants ‘a free upgrade to Premium-ready PCs would provide a windfall to millions.'”

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According to Microsoft’s quarterly statements, Zune platform revenue decreased 0 million, or 54 percent compared to the same quarter last year, due to falling device sales.

CWmike writes “US Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told Microsoft this week that US citizens should get priority over H-1B visa holders as the software vendor moves forward on its plan to cut 5,000 jobs. ‘These work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn,’ Grassley wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The letter asked Microsoft to detail the types of jobs that will be eliminated and how those cuts will affect the company’s H-1B workers.” Reader theodp adds, “On Friday, Microsoft coincidentally announced it would postpone construction of a planned 0 million data center in Grassley’s home state of Iowa, although work on data centers in Chicago and Dublin will continue.”

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