A decade ago, Microsoft was clearly leading the tech industry. But the Redmond-based company is now facing stiff competition from tech juggernauts Apple and Google. In an effort to develop killer products that would keep Apple and Google at bay, Microsoft plans to spend a massive $9.5 billion on research and development this year, which a senior executive said the figure is $3 billion more than the next closest technology company. Microsoft's chief operating officer Kevin Turner spoke at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany that much of this multi-billion dollar investment will be centered around improving software in the cloud. "Especially in light of the tough difficult macroeconomic times that we're coming out of, we chose to really lean in and double down on our innovation," said Turner. "We're going to change and reinvent our company around leading in the cloud."

In an effort to overtake Google Maps and clinch the title of "King of Maps", Microsoft's Bing Maps has rolled out an visually impressive and mind blowing feature that could leave Google Maps behind. The new application, known as Streetside Photos, mines geo-tagged photos from Flickr, associates them with Bing Maps Streetside photos and then overlays them by stretching the photo to form fit where in the world it belongs. For example, when you look at a Public Market (as seen below) on Bing Maps, you're able to view the default imagery together with geo-tagged photos from Flickr. This is particularly useful when you would like to take a peek of how it looks like at night or sunset. Another possible usage of Streetside Photos is to check the crowds at a particular time of the day. If the original photo on Bing Maps shows many people shopping for goods during the day, but Flickr photos of the same location during the night state otherwise, then of course you should do your shopping during the day if you prefer fewer crowds.

We usually associate pirated products/software with the world's most populous country -- China. However, a recent survey might change our focus to somewhere else instead. The survey, named "The Mysterious Customer" was conducted by Microsoft, which inspected 2,500 retailers in 53 Russian cities over the last few months. It found out that 25 per cent of Russian software outlets sell illegally copied Microsoft software, and some 11 per cent of them even offered to install the software onto customers' computers. This has made Russia claim the title of "biggest pirates of Windows 7". "A few years ago most computer stores in some form or other offered pirate software," said Denis Guz, head of the company's department that promotes the sale of licensed software, in emailed comments. "Now, as we see, there are significantly fewer sales points of that kind ... and now the majority of retailers offer only licensed programs."

Computer games are a great tool to train soldiers. In fact, there are games labeled as "realistic battlefield simulators" which are almost sold exclusively to armed forces. It seems the US amy is ready to train their troops on the Xbox instead of the PC. Sadly, Microsoft did not seem to like the idea. Microsoft has its reasons to decline the offer, and according to Roger Smith, chief technology officer for PEO STRI, the Army command responsible for purchasing training equipment, Microsoft declined because of 3 reasons. I doubt his reasons; the US Air Force bought 2200 PS3s to form a supercomputer and federal investigators use it to crack encryption codes on child pornographers. And all that time, the no one associated the PS3 with military networks. However, why did they choose to buy consoles? For one, they are cheap- costing only $200 compared to the $1000 on an average PC. Also, younger soldiers are more familiar with consoles. It seems like a great idea to train troops on on this, but they would need to hire someone to make their game.

With today's launch of Google Buzz, Microsoft and Yahoo are now releasing press releases saying how wrong Google is for launching the new service. Yahoo has to realize their product isn't going to catch on. Google is going to blow them away like they already have with all of their other services. The same goes for Microsoft/Hotmail. Buzz is going to be a better product no matter what.

Two weeks ago, Google was hacked by the Chinese government. Gmail accounts were accessed through Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 6 is a very old web browser (2001), from Microsoft. China found a way through IE6 and hacked companies like Google and Adobe. Google slapped Microsoft in the face by taking away any Google website support in Internet Explorer 6. An IE6 user cannot access the main Google site, Google Docs, and their other services. Google was VERY smart. There is nothing safe about an old web browser. People will find obvious flaws in an old, unpatched, applications. I don't even know why Microsoft hasn't discontinued the old browser. Many companies will follow Google. If you are still on IE6, I really suggest downloading a browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, to be safer on the web.

Over the years Microsoft has been engaged in dozens of lawsuits, varying from anti-trust to copyright infringement. What were the most pivotal and influential legal battles? I have composed a list of the top-five most pivotal. A powerful company, with plenty of money to spend on lawyers is definitely a target, but not for that reason alone.

At CES earlier this month, Steve Ballmer showed off the Apple Tablet's rival -- the HP Slate. HP CTO Phil McKinney decided to share some details of the HP Slate, starting with how it was created 5 years ago as an e-reader, and then HP slowly but surely built up a "rich media experience" that most customers are after, he then said that now in a "perfect storm" of innovation HP has been able to create a multitouch tablet that is well priced and runs Windows 7.