Microsft Latest News and Developments

Microsoft laid out a grand plan to turn your Xbox 360 into an even stronger hub for everything from television shows and movies to music at E3 this year. That dashboard update launches tomorrow, bringing with it the ability to use your Kinect to search for content across every service you have connected to your system, as well as Microsoft's digital storefronts on Xbox Live and live television.

Unfortunately, not all of Microsoft's content partners will be ready for the service's launch tomorrow. HBO Go won't be available until early 2012, nor will Comcast's Xfinity on-demand library. Here are the services that will be available tomorrow, along with which market they will be active:

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) web browser has finally overtaken Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome on Windows 7, Microsoft claims.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 was the firm's first web browser in years that actually had something going for it, and is widely acknowledged as having improved standards compliance and performance. However even with a persuasive brand, only now has IE9 overtaken its open source rivals Firefox and Chrome on Windows 7.

Citing Net Applications' figures, Microsoft's said its latest web browser has just edged above Google Chrome to take top spot among what Microsoft terms 'modern browsers' on Windows 7. While Internet Explorer 9 has surpassed its contemporary rivals, Microsoft concedes that Internet Explorer 8 is still the most popular web browser among Windows 7 users.

Windows Phone's "Mango" update has been pushed out to the last few stragglers. The final handset to receive the update is the Dell Venue Pro—a quirky device with a portrait mode keyboard and a different WiFi chipset from most other Windows Phone models.

From start to finish, the whole upgrade process has taken a little over two months, with most users receiving the update at or soon after its release. Over the last few weeks, certain "problem" handsets—most notably a variant of Samsung's Focus—have also received their updates.

This successful rollout has been a refreshing change after the difficulties faced with the first significant Windows Phone update, "NoDo." That update trickled out over a period of many months, amid problems with failed installations, bricked phones, and recalcitrant carriers.

Microsoft appears to have made an epic stuff-up in the implementation of some new security measures earlier this week. Through a silent Xbox LIVE update that required no interaction on the part of the user, Microsoft updated the security challenge tables that catch out pirated discs. While this is good in the fight against piracy, once again legitimate users are experiencing issues.

Over on the official Xbox forums, there have been numerous reports of unsupported disc or dirty disc issues (specifically with Modern Warfare 3) due to this silent update, even with legitimate store-bought copies of the game: