Mac users will have to wait a bit longer if they wish to read or edit documents created with the new Open XML formats in Office 2007. Microsoft has delayed an update for Office 2004 for Mac until two months after the release of Office 2008 for Mac.

In the meantime, a standalone converter is being offered in beta, but its functionality is limited. It will convert .docx files from Office 2007 to the basic rich text format (RTF), which is compatible with both Office v.X and Office 2004. Microsoft recommends re-saving the document as a .doc before sending it to others.

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Microsoft on Tuesday introduced a new software solution designed for helping students complete their math homework. Math 3.0 targets middle and high school students, as well as entry-level college students, offering a number of calculators, equation editors and other tools.

Instead of just providing an answer, Microsoft Math steps the student through the process much like a tutor would. Subjects it supports include pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, physics and chemistry. Those students who can afford Tablet PCs or UMPCs can also write the problem by hand, and Math 3.0 will offer assistance. The product will be available for download this month at a cost of $19.95 USD.

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Along with officially naming the product to little surprise, Microsoft said at WinHEC in Los Angeles Tuesday that Windows Server "Longhorn" Beta 3 had been downloaded over 100,000 times in just three weeks. Now known as Windows Server 2008, the release will drive the next-generation of hardware innovation, said Bill Gates.

New in Windows Server 2008 will be built-in virtualization technology (although its feature set was cut last week), the Server Core installation option that removes the graphical user interface, Server Manager, Internet Information Services (IIS 7.0) and Windows PowerShell. Microsoft is already working with manufacturers to ensure hardware will be available to help drive adoption of the new server operating system.

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Although HD DVD may still have the lead when it comes to price, Blu-ray continues to add more manufacturers, with Panasonic today releasing its DMP- BD10A Blu-ray player, priced at $600. The player offers 7.1 channel sound with support for Dobly True HD and dts-HD audio.

The DMP- BD10A features full 1080p resolution and upconverts older DVDs to the high-definition signal. Although Panasonic's player is double the price of Toshiba's entry-level HD DVD offering, the company is bundling five Blu-ray movies for free. Consumers will receive copies of "Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl" and "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest" from Disney, "Transporter" and "Fantastic 4" from Fox and "Crash" from Lionsgate.

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Motorola on Tuesday introduced the second revision of its popular RAZR phone, complete with support for next-generation high speed data, a thinner profile, and higher-resolution display screens.

The RAZR 2 phone will initially become available this July in select markets. Among the features are up to 2GB of on-board memory, as well as an operating system based on Linux and Java. The new OS would mean a completely new user interface for the phone, something Motorola customers have long been desiring.

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In conjunction with the recent Spring 2007 update for the Xbox 360 and the new "Elite" version of Microsoft's console that adds HDMI output, the Redmond company has issued a firmware update for its HD DVD player add-on. New is full 1080p high-definition support.

Microsoft has added the option to select audio output, improved parental controls, as well as bolstering HD DVD network support and compatibility with HD DVD titles. The update will be delivered automatically when a user is logged into Xbox Live and plays a movie, or it can be downloaded manually from Xbox.com later this week.

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LOS ANGELES - At the keynote sessions at WinHEC this morning, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie took over the stage from Chairman Bill Gates. There, Mundie spoke about the evolution of computing in certain vertical markets, beginning with the health care industry.

In perhaps one of the most...unique breakthroughs shown thus far, Mundie demonstrated a touch-screen checkerboard that would be used by an elderly person in a home care system whose various rooms are linked together by home servers and Active Directory. There, an elderly lady can play checkers using physical checkers on the touch-screen board, which is horizontal. The computer player uses red checkers, and although Mundie described it as another human in another room, in the demo, the voice and reaction may be provided by computer.

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During his keynote at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference Tuesday, Bill Gates told an audience of developers that 40 million copies of Windows Vista have sold in the first 100 days of the operating system's release - a figure more than the install base of Windows' competitors combined.

The 40 million sales figure does, however, includes copies of Vista that were sold before the OS launched at the end of January through upgrade options on new PCs. Still, Gates said the rate of adoption of Vista is twice that seen for Windows XP in 2001. Premium editions of Vista account for 78 percent of sales, he added.

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Continuing a recent trend of consolidation in the advertising industry, AOL announced Tuesday it has acquired mobile ad provider Third Screen Media. AOL says the purchase, which was rumored in February, will enable it to offer marketers additional reach beyond the desktop Web browser.

While the market for mobile advertising is currently small, it is expected to grow over the next several years. AOL's move follows Google's acquisition of DoubleClick and Yahoo's purchase of Right Media. Terms of the Third Screen deal were not disclosed, although the company will become a subsidiary of AOL's Advertising.com division.

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While the rate of piracy worldwide has stayed fairly stable, the cost of the problem to software developers continues to rise as the market continues to grow, the Business Software Alliance said on Tuesday.

An IDC study commissioned by the BSA found that for every $2 spent on legitimate software, a dollar is lost to piracy. Worldwide, around 35 percent of all software is pirated.

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LOS ANGELES - The keynote sessions have begun at WinHEC 2007, with Chairman Bill Gates taking the podium at about 9:05 am this morning. Soon thereafter, he began a kind of retrospective, including a look not only at how the serial port looked in 1992, but how Gates himself looked (like many of us, he had more hair).

What's the theme? About five minutes into the speech, it looked like Gates was fishing for a theme. His retrospective is already treating Windows Vista as a milestone that has already passed. While developers here are looking for guidance in how to start developing hardware drivers and interoperability tools for Vista, some starting even now, at ten minutes into the speech, Microsoft began showing a quick-cut retrospective tape of last January's launch of Vista and Office 2007.

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Apple updated its popular MacBook line on Tuesday, giving the laptops faster processors, more memory, and larger hard drives across the board.

The MacBook is a huge hit for Apple, and the company said the line is one of the reasons why Mac sales are growing at a rate three times that of PCs. The updated MacBooks will be available immediately from both Apple's retail locations and partners, as well as online.

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LOS ANGELES - The reason Microsoft puts on a PC hardware-specific hardware conference every year, even though it's technically not a PC hardware manufacturer, is to appeal to its single most important and influential class of customers: system builders. An unavoidable truth in the personal computer industry is that consumer PCs are designed to run Windows. The way they handle the PCI Express bus, the way they manage graphics drivers, the way they connect to peripherals are all directly connected to how Windows works.

This is where Microsoft capitalizes on its inherent advantage as a commercial producer of operating systems. Windows is the principal driver of the personal computer economy. If Linux had more than half the PC users in the world, this would still be the case: Windows is built to sell. For this reason mainly, manufacturers such as Intel and AMD, nVidia and ATI, and Asus and MSI take Windows more seriously than anything else.

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The United States Department of Justice has announced the 50th felony conviction as part of its Operation FastLink crackdown on warez groups operating on the Internet to illegally share music, movies, games and software. Christopher Eaves, 31, of Iowa Park, Texas, faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release.

Eaves was part of a group known as "Apocalypse Crew," and was responsible for providing copyrighted music online before its official release. “Digital piracy is a serious and growing global problem, and this 50th conviction represents a milestone never before achieved in any online piracy prosecution,” commented Assistant Attorney General Fisher. The DOJ's Operation FastLink has thus far resulted in more than 120 search warrants executed in 12 countries.

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A prominent research firm is calling the for-pay video download industry a "dead end," saying free ad-supported streams would likely take their place. The peak for the industry will come this year, it claims.

According to Forrester Research, premium video downloads will reach revenues of $279 million in 2007, up from $98 million the previous year. Such a market shift could have major implications for products like Apple TV, which depend heavily on the industry.

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