More buzz on the Microsoft media player

I have no knowledge of this project and have never heard a thing from inside Microsoft about this video/music player concept, and wouldn’t expect to given my role. Having said that, the buzz is tremendously exciting. Peter Rojas of Engadet writes, “To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you’ve already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They’ll actually scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it’ll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.” If this is all true, it should be an exciting holiday season with the Xbox 360 next wave of game titles and accessories along with this new portable media device coming to market.

FBI security breach- how does this happen?

Washington Post: “A government consultant, using computer programs easily found on the Internet, managed to crack the FBI’s classified computer system and gain the passwords of 38,000 employees, including that of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III… [Joseph Thomas Colon], 28, an employee of BAE Systems who was assigned to the FBI field office in Springfield, Ill., said in court filings that he used the passwords and other information to bypass bureaucratic obstacles and better help the FBI install its new computer system. And he said agents in the Springfield office approved his actions.”

It is amazing to me that this could occur at the FBI. Not the technical aspect of the hacking, but rather the acknowledged breach of policy that was allegedly known to agents in the local office where the breaches occurred. This seems totally inexcusable in a place like the FBI where information security in all of its aspects should be top of mind for every employee every day. It shows me that the biggest issues with security continue to be lack of awareness, even moreso than technology issues/limitations.

“What happens to your own personal internet?”

Ted Stevens (R-Alaska): “But this service is now going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free. Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet? I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?”

Why indeed.

ODF Support in Office

Financial Times: “[Microsoft will] develop tools to build a “technical bridge” between its own Open XML document format and the OpenDocument format (ODF).”

Brian Jones from the Office team writes, “We’ve talked a lot about the value the Open XML formats bring, and one of them of course is the ability to filter it down into other formats. While we still aren’t seeing a strong demand for ODF support from our corporate or consumer customers, it’s now a bit different with governments. We’ve had some governments request that we help build solutions so that can use ODF for certain situations, so that’s why we are creating the Open XML Translator project.” The official press release from Microsoft is here.