BUSINESS
June 2, 2009 | Alex Pham and Ben Fritz
Video game players with less-than-dexterous thumbs will soon stand a fighting chance, with Microsoft Corp. on Monday promising a new method for controlling the action with full body movements. The Redmond, Wash., software giant unveiled a technology for its Xbox 360 video game console that, as early as next year, could let people toss aside the baffling 12-button controller. Instead, the system's camera and sound sensors detect movement of faces and body joints as well as voice commands.
BUSINESS
April 23, 2002 | Bloomberg News
Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, said that Seamus Blackley, co-inventor of the Xbox video-game console, is leaving the company four days after it slashed its sales targets for the device. Blackley, who helped persuade Chairman Bill Gates to build the money-losing Xbox, plans to form a new gaming venture. James Bernard, a spokesman for the Redmond, Wash., company, declined to say who would assume Blackley's responsibilities.
BUSINESS
September 24, 2007 | Alex Pham and Josh Friedman, Times Staff Writers
It's being billed as the biggest day in entertainment history. When "Halo 3" comes out Tuesday, the video game is expected to pull in more than $150 million in sales in 24 hours. By comparison, "Spider-Man 3" blitzed box-office records when it took in $151 million at theaters during its three-day opening weekend in May. So are games really a bigger business than movies? Not quite.
BUSINESS
April 9, 2006 | Charles Piller, Times Staff Writer
Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy -- and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made. Although the world's largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege -- and Microsoft acknowledges -- that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs.
BUSINESS
September 28, 2009 | David Sarno
As Google and Microsoft battle for dominance in technology, a skirmish in Los Angeles City Hall is offering a rare public glimpse into a rivalry that could help determine the fortunes of both companies -- and, quite possibly, how workers in the future will communicate. The two tech giants are clashing over a $7.25-million contract to replace L.A.'s outdated e-mail system. The stakes are high enough that both companies have fielded teams of lobbyists and executives to press their case in City Hall.
BUSINESS
February 2, 2008 | Alex Pham and Jessica Guynn, Times Staff Writers
Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang chose the name of his company in part because it referred to someone who is rude, unsophisticated and uncouth -- not the starchy executive jockeying for splashy deals. The 39-year-old billionaire has relished the title of Chief Yahoo that he picked up after he and friend David Filo started the Internet search company in 1995 as graduate students at Stanford University.
BUSINESS
November 3, 2009 | David Sarno
Microsoft Corp. and OpenX Technologies Inc., a Pasadena-based Web advertising start-up, have struck a deal that would enable both companies to expand the reach of their online ad businesses. OpenX, which operates one of the nation's largest independent online advertising networks, develops software that enables marketers to funnel ads to websites that are visited by the type of buyers they are targeting. Similarly, advertisers use Microsoft to create and distribute ads, be they for flowers, movies or Maseratis.
WORLD
August 9, 2004 | Henry Chu, Mark Magnier and Joseph Menn, Times Staff Writers
Enylson Camolesi has only to look at his teenage daughter to understand the challenges of overcoming addiction. He's gently trying to help her kick the habit, grimly aware that the difficult task at home is what he's attempting to replicate, on a massive scale, throughout the Brazilian government. But he and other officials are determined to succeed.
BUSINESS
October 22, 2009 | Dan Fost
Almost no one found Microsoft Corp.'s last attempt at a new operating system, Windows Vista, very entertaining. So when it came time for the software giant to create the sequel, it hoped a little Hollywood touch would bring audiences back to its screens. Jonathan Wiedemann, the former managing director of Propaganda Films, which made groundbreaking MTV videos as well as films such as "Wild at Heart" and "Madonna: Truth or Dare," has for the last three years been leading a team responsible for a key feature on the Windows 7 operating system, the much-hyped upgrade to Vista that Microsoft will begin selling today.
BUSINESS
June 9, 2009 | DAN NEIL
As an opening gambit, Microsoft's campaign for its new Bing search engine accuses Google of causing global economic ruin. That's cheeky. The 60-second commercial titled "Manifesto" (JWT Worldwide), which began airing last week, opens with scenes of random YouTube nuttiness (videos of Perez Hilton, the keyboard-playing cat, OK Go's treadmill shtick, etc.). Then the mood darkens. The narrator says: "While everyone was searching, there was bailing. . . .