Microsoft has announced that the company will rely and lean on law enforcement agencies when it comes to investigating instances of people using Microsoft services to “traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property from Microsoft,” as Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Counsel & Executive Vice President of Legal & Corporate Affairs says in this blog post. Smith said that the change in policy is “effectively immediately.”
The announcement comes just over a week after the arrest of Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee who reportedly leaked Windows 8 code to a French blogger prior to its release in 2012. As part of Microsoft’s investigation into the matter, the company read messages stored in the Hotmail account of the blogger that Kibkalo leaked the data and information to. This revelation raised privacy concerns.
“While our own search was clearly within our legal rights, it seems apparent that we should apply a similar principle and rely on formal legal processes for our own investigations involving people who we suspect are stealing from us,” said Smith. “Therefore, rather than inspect the private content of customers ourselves in these instances, we should turn to law enforcement and their legal procedures.”
Smith also announced that Microsoft will partner with The Center for Democracy and Technology and The Electronic Frontier Foundation as part of efforts to “consider the best solutions for the future of digital services.”
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.