Researchers at Symantec have published a report highlighting how the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) -- a main component of Windows Update -- is being used by Trojans to download malware that bypasses firewalls and security controls.

BITS runs in the background and downloads patches to Windows without eating up all available bandwidth. Because it supports the HTTP protocol, it can be used to download almost any file, and Microsoft employs the technology for sending beta versions of its software such as Vista and Windows Server to testers.

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Responding to a number of recent articles claiming that Vista's new "Aero" user interface causes laptops running the new operating system to drain their battery faster, Microsoft has published its own results. The company says Aero consumes only 1% to 4% more battery life than when the feature is disabled.

Vista is designed to turn off transparency effects when put into a power-saving profile, but Microsoft product manager Nick White says, "We don't turn off Aero wholesale because in the end, doing so is not going to save you much more power." White notes that a laptop display is the big culprit, consuming between 15% and 25% of the battery, while the graphics processor (GPU) uses only a small percent, even when being pushed to its limits with Aero.

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A new policy being implemented by the Department of Defense means that soldiers will lose access to 13 sites including MySpace and YouTube beginning Monday in an effort to conserve bandwidth.

The agency claims the "recreational" use of its network slows down official government work, as well as posing a security risk for ongoing operations. The new policy would supplement a preexisting policy that forbids the sharing of information that may jeopardize the missions of the military.

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Microsoft is readying a new file conversion tool for Office that is designed to strip out malicious code embedded in a document. The company says businesses will be safer from exploits in older file formats, and, in turn, Microsoft could see more upgrades to Office 2007.

The tool, dubbed Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment, or MOICE, can be associated to the older file formats like those used in Office 2003. When the document is accessed, it is upconverted by MOICE and handed off to the new version of Office.

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Microsoft's Halo 3 video game may not be the blockbuster some were hoping for: at preview events in both New York and San Francisco, the game was generally well-received, although some said it could be better.

Halo is one of Redmond's most successful gaming franchises ever, and the latest release of the first person shooter game is one of the most highly anticipated titles of the year. Microsoft will make available a public beta of the game starting Wednesday.

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Microsoft is using a new technique to combat the threat of open-source to its business: accusing it of using its intellectual property covered in some 235 patents.

The accusation comes from Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer and general counsel Brad Smith, who told Fortune the movement needs to "play by the same rules" that everybody else does and license the technologies it uses.

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Just four months after its big coming out party at CES, U3 -- a platform for running applications from USB thumb drives -- has already been put on the chopping block by parent SanDisk. The company has decided to join Microsoft in creating a new standard.

U3 was first introduced in 2005, backed by a host of supporting software and hardware vendors. Popular applications including AOL's Winamp, Cerulean Studios' Trillian, McAfee Antivirus and Skype among others were offered in U3 versions to spur its adoption.

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As the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) kicks off this week in Los Angeles, nine hardware manufacturers will introduce a new generation of phones designed to work with Microsoft's Office Communications Server and Office Communicator.

Microsoft provided the specifications for the phones, which link up with e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence, and conferencing. The company is aiming to bring voice communications back into a business world that has been shifting toward written chats and e-mail.

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After about ten months of watching somebody else marching ahead as the all-around leader in both price and performance, AMD this morning stopped making purely defensive plays, and at last launched its counter-offensive. It will be introducing a new CPU architecture for the second half of this year, aimed at performance-hungry customers perhaps willing to pay a premium.

With the Phenom processor series, which will include a single-die quad-core and a double-quad-core package, AMD will soon be managing three consumer desktop CPU lines, as Athlon moves into the midrange, mainstream space, and Phenom assumes the company's high-performance mantle from Athlon FX.

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A report in Broadcasting & Cable yesterday quoted Bob Zitter, Chief Technology Officer for HBO, speaking at a cable broadcaster's conference in Las Vegas last Tuesday, as suggesting that customers might accept the concept of digital rights management if it were named something else.

Zitter suggested, according to the report, that the technology should be marketed in such a way that it conveys a message that viewers could "use content in ways they haven't before." For that reason, he is suggesting the term "Digital Consumer Enablement."

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For the month of March, Apple was the fourth largest seller of notebook computers, grabbing nearly 10 percent of the market behind Gateway, Toshiba and HP. The retail numbers, consolidated by NPD Group, do not include Dell, which only sells directly.

Apple's 9.9 percent share in March puts the company back in the top five notebook retailers after it dropped out in February. Apple previously held a 10.1 percent market share in January. Toshiba led the market in March with a share of 26.2 percent, closely followed by HP at 23.9 percent. Gateway placed third with 13 percent of the market.

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On the same day Google rejected an anti-censorship petition from shareholders that could have prevented the company from operating in China, the search giant's YouTube property agreed to take down video clips deemed offensive to Thailand's king Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Adulyadej is revered as near-divine in Thailand and criticizing or offending royalty is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The country blocked access to YouTube in April following the posting of two video clips mocking the king, and threatened to sue the company for making them available. Google now says it will remove 12 clips, and Thailand has agreed to not to file suit.

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A Google shareholders' resolution put forth by representatives of New York City pension funds, which would have mandated the company would not store personal data on servers housed in countries where Internet management may be monitored by the state, was apparently rejected yesterday during the company's annual stockholder's meeting, after the company's board of directors voiced their disapproval last month.

The petition specifically listed Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam as countries that "block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens attempt to obtain." On that basis, the resolution implied, those countries should not be trusted not to interfere with private data on US citizens.

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A bill that would require all polling places for federal elections to produce paper ballots for voters' inspection prior to casting their vote, passed a critical test in the House Administration Committee on Tuesday. From here, the bill proceeds to a vote of the full House, which could come as soon as next week.

"The voting system shall require the use of or produce an individual voter-verified paper ballot of the voter's vote that shall be created by or made available for inspection and verification by the voter before the voter's vote is cast and counted," reads the bill's first section. It goes on to mention electronic voting machines parenthetically, as one of the possible producers of the paper ballot.

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