Microsoft has announced financial results for the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, including net income of $4.29 billion on revenue of $13.76 billion. The numbers are a 23 percent includes from the same period last year, and translate to earnings of 45 cents per share. Market watchers had forecast earnings of less than 40 cents per share.
“This fiscal year is off to an outstanding start with the fastest revenue growth of any first quarter since 1999,” said Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell, in a statement. “Operating income growth of over 30% also reflects our ability to translate revenue into profits while making strategic investments for the future.”
Microsoft says has sold 88 million copies of Windows Vista since the operating system became available to consumers in January of this year, and the company aso saw a 20 percent increase in sales of Microsoft Office compared to a year ago, with figures for the software suite totaling $4.11 billion.
However, sales of the much-anticipated video game Halo 3—and the Xbox 360 systems fans purchased in order to be able to play the game—also contributed to the company’s bottom line, with the company’s entertainment and devices division pulling in a $165 million profit for the quarter. The quarter marks only the second quarter the Xbox division has been out of the red, and the group’s revenue rose to nearly $1.93 billion, nearly double the amount from the same quarter last year. Microsoft also says it sold 1.8 million Xbox 360 consoles during the quarter. Microsoft is expected even bigger things from its entertainment and devices group next quarter, which will include the 2008 holiday season.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
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.